Little Red Robin Hood
by Alexandyne
Summary: Never before has there been a girl in the Corps; but that's about to change. Will and his apprentice Sandy set out on an adventure to help the poor, only to discover that his apprentice is a girl.
1. the Drawing

**Ok, I have been reading this series for like a week and I am totally in love with it. I'm only on book six, but I can't stand it I have to write this... it might not be up to date with the tenth one or anything but, I'm going to write it anyway.**

**I wanted to use a blonde, green eyed girl I invented a long time ago, but seeing as all the main characters that are girls that I've come across so far in the story are blonde, and Evanlyn even has green eyes, I couldn't bring myself to do it.  
><strong>

**I know I start stories like this all the time, but I never finish them... this one I swear is going to be different haha. I'm going to finish it and see it allllllllll the way through. So please review and enjoy!**

* * *

><p>Will frowned. He walked through the trees without a sound from the old leaves under his hunter's boots. He couldn't understand why they had decided to put him in at Lafway fief. Surely they didn't think he wasn't capable enough of the more rigorous fiefs? Surely not. He allowed himself a little arrogance: he was Will Treaty, after all.<p>

He glided between the trees and could see a clearing up infront. Perfect. There would probably be some animal of some kind there. He wanted to try and sneak up on an animal, since their senses are so much keener than a person's, to make sure he still had his skills in check.

He crept up to the clearing, and noticed there was indeed an animal. A rabbit, as a matter of fact. He stepped forward, about 5 feet from the treeline, when he saw her. He had nearly stepped on the girl, sitting still as she was. She hadn't seen him yet, and he stood stock still.

The girl was wearing a long sleeved mottled auburn brown shirt. It wasn't on purposely so, it was obviously a bad dye job; but it served the same purpose as his ranger's cloak. She wore tan trousers, although he never would have mistaken her for a boy; she had long, nearly black hair hanging around her shoulders. She was sitting absolutely still, the only part of her moving was her fingers as the worked a charcoal pencil across a thick piece of paper.

On the piece of paper was an incredibly lifelike drawing of the rabbit in the clearing.

Will cursed himself mentally. If the girl hadn't been so focused on her drawing she may well have seen him. Fine Ranger he was.

The girl's ability to fit into the background was astonishing, for a normal country girl.

He must have made some sound for the girl looked up abruptly, eyes looking around the clearing. Her eyes slid right over Will without seeing him, but the rabbit saw her movement and started, bounding off. She cursed softly under her breath, throwing the paper to her left, right infront of Will. The drawing was not quite complete, some shading around the rabbit's tail still needed tending to. But the eyes were amazingly alive. The girl had skills he had to admit.

She leaned back and sat very very still, with her eyes closed. Will took a step forwards, looking at the drawing. The girl's eyes snapped open again and her eyes sought him out, frowning.

"Who's there?" she called out softly. Will didn't respond. He simply turned and moved unseen through the woods back to the trail some ways off. He ought to report to the castle anyways. He had just found his cabin here at Lafway, and hadn't yet even seen the castle. The trees melted away as he thought of Crowley retiring, and all the fiefs getting changed around as Halt took his place. When Halt went to take his place by Castle Araluen, Will had desperately hoped to go back to Redmont. He had been sadly disappointed.

He walked out into the clearing by his cabin. Tug stood, nibbling on the grass. The dog curled on the porch, and looked up when he entered the clearing. She woofed a soft greeting, then pulled herself to her feet.

She was getting old, he mused. Gray fur was in her coat now, although she didn't show it. Tug bobbed his head in greeting, and Will patted his neck as the dog trotted up to him. He scratched between her ears, then hauled himself up into the saddle. He dug his knees lightly into Tug's side, and he broke into a trot down the trail in the general direction of the castle.


	2. Alisandra

**Please review!**

* * *

><p>The Baron seemed nice enough, Will decided. Will paced around the study, looking out the windows as the Baron chatted aimlessly with him, pouring some coffee.<p>

"You know," Baron Gerald said in a conversational tone. "We've never had a famous Ranger working with our fief before." Will smiled wryly, accepting the cup of coffee.

Some yelling outside drew his attention back to the window. The Baron frowned and stood, coming over to stand by the Ranger and see what the commotion was. In the courtyard down below, guards were pushing a very small figure forwards, as a large burly man stormed towards them, voice raised.

"YOU DID IT AGAIN? DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH?" The man yelled, fury in his voice. He was obviously the battle master, Will mused. He focused in on the figure, and was mildly surprised to see it was a girl. She was small enough, he decided, perhaps even small for a girl, although what on earth a girl could have done to get a voice lashing from a man like that he had no idea. The girl replied, but her voice was too soft and controlled for it to carry up to the tower window.

"Alisandra," the Baron sighed, walking away from the window.

"What did she do?" Will asked, turning curiously to the Baron.

"She probably snuck off into the woods again," the Baron replied. As if in response, the voice boomed below.

"THERE ARE WOLVES IN THOSE WOODS, AND BEARS. YOU ARE GOING TO GET KILLED ONE OF THESE DAYS!"

The Baron chuckled. "Seems so," he said with a grin. Will felt his own mouth quirk into a smile.

"What on earth does she do in the woods?"

"Draws, mostly. She wants to apprentice to the artist we have here," the Baron said, staring out the window past Will. "Between you and I, she's more than good enough. But he won't take her when it's time."

Will turned back to look out the window, and noted the girl had black hair. He remembered the girl in the woods he had seen, and put two and two together. "Why won't he take her?"

The Baron shrugged. "He says she's much too small, her hands could hardly sculpt or work with clay, which is part of the craft. I think quite contrarily to him, but I'm no artist. And he is quite right about her hands; they hardly cover my palm. Neither of us have the heart to tell the girl yet."

"A shame," Will murmured.

"It's quite depressing that she'll go to farm work," Gerald said. He shook his head lightly. Will looked up in mild surprise.

"She's a ward?" he asked, turning back from the window once more and sitting down in the chair, mug of coffee in his hands. The Baron nodded.

"Her father died fighting Morgarath," he said. "Her mother was taken by wolves in the same forest she runs off to each day."

"Courageous little girl," Will said, leaning back in the chair. The Baron smiled.

"True enough," he said. He pointed to an oil painting of a sunset hanging on the wall. "She did that when she was twelve. She always asks me to take it down, saying it's no good and she could do me a better one. I like it plenty though." Will examined the painting. It was good, although it did have some minor tremblings that would be expected of a twelve year old. It was still better than he could do, he thought wryly.

"Anyway," Will said. "Speaking of Wards, when are they getting their apprenticeships?"

"It was to be this week, but with the change of Rangers we decided we could postpone it a week to allow you to get more settled in," the Baron said. Will shook his head.

"This week it is," he said. "I don't have much to do in such things anyway." The Baron grinned at him.

"Alright," the Baron said, then seemed to think of something. "I do believe the Ranger meeting is in September?"

Will snorted. "Nice to know it's such a brilliantly kept secret," he said sarcasticly. Gerald's mouth twitched up in that grin again. "Your point?"

"Just wondering when you would be leaving is all," Gerald replied.

"Next month," Will said. "Unfortunate timing. I'd like to have more time on the fief but it's not to be so." The Baron nodded, and they sat in silence a few moments, sipping from the cups of coffee.

"We're having a banquet tonight. I trust you'll be joining us?"

"I don't see why not," Will said.

"Alis asked if she could play at the banquet," the Baron mused, looking at the painting on the wall. Will looked up.

"She plays?"

"Guitar," the Baron said. "She's a very artistic girl, including music." Will nodded to himself. It made since he decided. Six strings would be more handleable than his mandola, especially for small put down his empty coffee mug, and stood. He flicked the cowl of his cloak up over his head and nodded a farewell to the Baron, then faded out the door.

The Baron shook his head in disbelief, watching him vanish into thin air. Ranger's were quite good at that. Alisandra was still on his mind, and thinking of her, he decided she might make a good Ranger. She was good at not being noticed, so the animals didn't run when she drew them.

But of course, there were no girls in the Corps. He dismissed the girl from his mind, turning his mind to the banquet that was coming up that night.


	3. The River She Is Flowing

**Ohmigods, thanks so much for pointing out I had posted the wrong chapter 2. Luckily, it was before I started writing this chapter, so Chapter 2 hadn't been deleted from my drive and replaced with 3... haha. Anyway, enjoy!**

* * *

><p>Will sat at his seat beside the Baron, on the other side there was the battle master. The Battle Master was still flustered from earlier in the day, and kept throwing glares at Alis <strong>(AN: incase you didn't know, Alis is pronounced Alice...)<strong> as she played. She was quite good, although Will did notice she didn't play several chords played by master guitarists he'd seen; she played them differently and they didn't sound quite the same. He decided he liked her version better. About three songs of instrumentals went by before someone yelled out.

"Come on, Alis! Sing!" it was a boy's voice, and it came from a table where the battle apprentices sat. She laughed, and strummed out the last few notes of the song she was playing. Then, she began a very different song. Instead of picking out the melody, she strummed the chords at the same time. It sounded almost as if two guitars were being played, and then she began to sing.

"_The river she is flowing  
>flowing and glowing<br>The river she is flowing  
>back to the sea<br>Oh Mother carry me,  
>Your child I will always be.<br>Oh Mother carry me,  
>back to the sea.<em>

_The fire she is glowing_  
><em>Flowing and Glowing<em>  
><em>The fire she is glowing<em>  
><em>light upon me<em>  
><em>Fire and Water work as one<em>  
><em>sing until our song is done<em>  
><em>Fire and river enchant you dear<em>  
><em>I come to drown your deepest fears.<em>"

The lullaby- that's what he decided it was- was enchanting. She was good at singing too, he decided. He remembered back to when he had been posing as a jongleur. He smiled at the thought; what would Orman think of her? His mind wandered back through the woods, and wondered how Shadow was doing. He reached down and ruffled his dog's ears. He had kept good on his word; Shadow had had pups. Three of them were solid white, one was black, and one had been tiny and black and white. He had taken the black and white runt.

He righted himself in his seat, sipping his wine. As he looked back to the girl, he jumped seeing she was staring at him while she sang and played. Her eyes were an odd; They were so dark blue they were nearly black, and then there was a ring of blue so light it was like ice around her pupil. She tilted her head to the side, watching him. He could see it in her face; she was fascinated with him. He shifted some under her gaze. She then turned her eyes from him, ending the song. The apprentices applauded, and a blonde boy with dark brown eyes stood and clapped her on the back lightly. She laughed, her fingers idly picking out a tune as she talked with the apprentice knight.

The dog stood and bounded over to the Alis, and with a grin she patted her head without breaking the rhythm of her strumming. Keely- the dog (Trobar named her)- trotted back to Will happily.

The banquet passed quickly after that. The baron mentioned to him in passing the Wards would be having their ceremony tomorrow if he could make it. He agreed easily, and then said he would be retiring to his cottage.

The next day, he woke with the light of dawn. He rolled out of bed, and made himself breakfast. He then grabbed his cloak and quiver and threw it around him, strung his bow where it lay by the door, and strode out the door. Keely's ears perked up, and she stood to follow him, but he gestured for her to stay. Outside, Tug whinned as he walked by, but Will didn't want either with him just now. He wanted to explore the woods. He set off down a trail, wrapping his cloak around him, when he heard a voice.

"I don't know what I'm going to do, Max," said a girl's voice. "Today is going to be the worst day of my life... I probably won't be able to come here ever again... don't worry I'll still find a way to see you..." Will frowned. He was SURE there was no other voice talking. It took him a moment to place the girl's voice, then realized it was Alis. He walked forwards on silent feet, and found the girl sitting a bit back from the track, with a wolf in her lap. The wolf was near full grown, and kept poking it's nose in her face.

"I'm going to be sent to a farm, Max, and they don't even have the guts to tell me," the girl said. Her voice was sad, and she wrapped the wolf in a hug. "I don't know what I'm going to do," she said again.

The wolf's ears pricked as Will took another step forwards, and his head swivelled, trying to pick Will out. Will froze in his cloak. The wolf sniffed, and bounded off the girl's lap, growling at Will. The girl didn't see him yet, but the wolf did.

"Max, calm down," she said, standing. She took a few steps forward even with the wolf and was two meters away before she saw him. She jumped, eyes wide, when she saw him. "Ranger!" she squeaked, taking an involuntary step backwards. Will flicked the cowl of his cloak back from his head, unable to keep a faint grin from his face at her reaction.

Standing by the girl, he was somewhat surprised to see she was several centimetres shorter than he was. Not many people were.

"Calm down, Alis," Will said with an easy grin. Then he regarded the wolf. "Curious, but how did you come to have a pet wolf?"

"He's not my pet," she responded hotly. Will arched an eyebrow. "He was an orphaned pup," she said. Her eyes turned soft, and Will understood immediately, although she continued. "I couldn't just leave him on his own." Will nodded slowly.

"I suppose that would explain some things," he said. Alis nodded, stroking the wolf's ears. The wolf wasn't full grown an came to just below Will's waist.

"I should get back to the castle, the sun's been up nearly a half hour. I'm not supposed to be here," she said, and then turned and started down the path. She paused, then turned back to look over her shoulder with those odd eyes. "Ranger?" Will nodded for her to continue. "Don't tell?" A smile broke out on his face.

"Don't set your wolf on me?" he replied. She tilted back her head and laughed openly. Her eyes twinkled at him, and then she turned and ran down the path, the wolf on her heels. Will shook his head. He remembered being 15.

It was hell.

He laughed at himself. A decade later, and he was still cursing that year. He shook his head, and walked back to his cabin.


	4. Declined

**Alright I have this down now, I have a game plan set up to over half way through in detail. And for the record about the song; it's actually based off of a song we sing at camp, and I absolutely love it. At camp we only sing from "the river she is flowing" to "Oh mother carry me back to the sea" the rest was me.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Will stood with the masters he had been aquainted with at the banquet. The diplomat, the scribe, the battle master, the artist. The artist fidgeted unhappily; Will had found him to be a very nice man, and knew he was dreading telling Alis. But she simply wasn't capable of what he needed. Will turned to look at the Wards.<p>

There were eight of them. Two were burly boys who were obviously going for battle school, one was a tall thin girl with very pale blonde hair, and bright green eyes. Alis and her held hands. Sisters? Perhaps. They looked nothing alike. There was a boy of average height, making eye contact with the scribe. There was a boy with very composted expression, not making eyecontact with any, and standing very straight. A diplomat. There was a girl with long slim fingers, grey eyes, and a stick of charcoal behind her ear, who was watching the artist. There was another boy and girl, hands interlaced, looking in separate directions.

Will noticed with some interest there was no one yelling at the Wards like there had been when he was in their shoes, 10 years ago. He decided he liked this way better.

"Gregory Thomas," the Baron said with a kind smile to the boy making eye contact with the scribe. "Please step forwards... Who would you like to be apprenticed to?" he said easily.

"Scribeschool, please my lord," he said, shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot. The scribe nodded.

"Accepted." The boy let out a relieved sigh, and stepped back into line.

"Klarey Smitherson," the Baron said, looking at the blonde girl holding hands with Alis, and their hands dropped. "Please step forwards... Who would you like to be apprenticed to?"

"Diplomatic services," she said quietly and evenly.

"Accepted." She smiled, and stepped back to hold Alis' hand.

"Isabella Mollay," the Baron said. "Please step forwards... Who would you like to be apprenticed to?" The girl with the stick of charcoal behind her ear stepped forwards.

"Artistry, my lord," she said. The artist nodded, but didn't speak. She stepped back in line. Will shifted his weight imperceptibly; the ceremony was getting repetitive and very very boring.

"Chrysanthemum Arid," he said, and the girl holding hands with the boy stepped forth. "Who would you like to be apprenticed to?"

"Physician," she said quietly, making fleeting eye contact with the man standing behind Will.

"Accepted," he said.

"Donald Freewall," Baron Gerald said, and one of the large boys stepped forwards.

"Battleschool," the boy replied.

"Accepted."

"Arribald Leeson," the Baron said, and the boy who had held hands with the girl stepped forth.

"Chef," he said quietly.

"Hmmm..." the chef took a step forwards, and prodded him in the stomach. "You'll do."

"Charlie Baldwell," the Baron said, and the other large boy stepped forwards.

"Battle school," he said.

"Accepted."

The Baron sighed notably, noticing he was down to Alis. "Alisandra Smitherson," he said, and before he finished her name she had taken a step forwards. "Who would you like to be apprenticed to?"

Alis looked at the artist, very sadly. She opened her mouth, paused, and then said, "Battleschool."

The room broke into an uproar. The Baron looked completely stunned, and raised his hand for silence. The battlemaster stepped forwards.

"I don't think we can take her..."

"Why?" Alis demanded, rebellion in her tone. "Because I'm a girl?" Anger flashed through her face, then faded almost instantly to a controlled look of contempt.

"No," the battle master said, irritably, color in his face. "You are also much too small. I doubt you could lift a sword much less swing one." A look of cold fury flashed across Alis' face.

"Give me your sword then, and I'll prove it," she snapped. The Battle-master hesitated, but the Baron motioned him to do it anyway. He slid his sword out of his scabbard, and handed it hilt first to Alis. She took the sword in her hand, and the Battle-master released abruptly. She seemed for all the world to hold it effortlessly, though the Battle-Master's and Will's trained eyes could see the strain in her shoulders and wrist to support the heavy broadsword. She reached out with her other hand, holding it in a double grip. The tension faded although Will still saw it was an effort. She spun it in a smooth circle, using her wrists. She did a left side cut then a right; again Will noticed how much effort it took to halt the blade in it's swing.

"She's good," the Baron whispered to the battle-master. The Battle-master only shook his head.

"She's too small and it takes too much her strength; she'd never hold her own in battle," Sir Lawrence said with a frown. "My answer still stands. No." He took the sword back with ease, sliding it into his scabbard. The Baron sighed.

"What's your second option?" the Baron tried.

"Diplomatic," she said shortly.

"Declined."

"Scribe."

"Declined."

"Artist," she broke down and looked at the man, pleading. He just shook his head sadly.

"Can any of you take her?" the Baron asked, looking around the room. Will wanted to speak out and take the girl... but the Ranger Corps didn't have girls. Will and the others she hadn't called out all shook their heads. Alis squared her shoulder, and held her chin high. "Then I suppose we'll be finding a farm in need."

Will saw the way her hands shook, but she didn't make a sound. She stepped back into line, and the Wards all turned and walked out. Last in line, she paused, and looked over her shoulder at Will. They made eye contact, until she broke it and closed the door behind her.


	5. Joshua

Will rode Tug through the woods, sighing happily. The two and a half weeks he'd been on the fief had been pleasant, and there hadn't been much in the way of trouble. He rode off in three days for the Ranger meeting, to be there by the time the month ended. He rode through the back trails around the edges of the town just outside the castle, and came to where the trees thinned and opened up into the rolling pastures and hills of the farmhouses. He noted a tavern half a kilometre out, and decided a drink and warm supper wouldn't hurt. He rode through a path of matted grass going behind the farmhouses, going for the tavern.

He paused as he heard yelling coming from the nearest one. A man's voice. He rode up to the window and peered inside out of curiosity. A large man, strengthened and tanned from years of hard labor, was yelling at a girl he recognised to be Alis.

"You incompetent wrench!" he screamed. Will arched an eyebrow, amused that the farmer was trying to use 'big words'. "Have you never cooked before in your life? What is this you call BREAD? This is repulsive!" He shook a blackened loaf in her face. She watched him expressionless. "All you ever do is draw! Get it together girl!" he struck her across the face. She took it without a sound, her head snapping sharply to the right. She turned back, and Will saw blood welling from where the man's nails had struck her.

"I have it in mind, you should be kinder in your words," she said softly. Even though the words were soft, there was an unmistakable threat in her tone.

"You don't tell me what to do you worthless child!" he struck her again, her head whipping to the left this time. She straightened, and took a light step back. She saw Will then, although she didn't let it show to the farmer. She turned around slowly so she was facing the window, and winked at Will. He noticed the blood was dripping down her left cheek now, and there were new cuts on her right. She then spun around back to the farmer very quickly, and brought her foot up into his groin. The man gasped and tumbled to the side, and Will even winced.

"I warned you," she said softly, then grabbed a crimson cloak from across the back of a chair and threw it around her. She then walked out the door, looked at Will for a long, silent moment, then let out a long whistle.

A grey shape streaked from the woods, and Will recognised the wolf.

"It's nice to see a familiar face, Ranger," she said quietly. "Keep well." Without another word, she walked to the woods, the wolf at her heels. The wolf - Max, he seemed to remember the wolf's name was- looked back at the Ranger, tilted his head, and then turned and bounded after her. Will paused, then continued on his way to the tavern.

The farmer unsettled him. The girl was so small, and was so cruel. He was still frowning when he got to the tavern.

* * *

><p>Alis sat by the creek with Max by her side, studying her reflection and washing away the blood from her face. Joshua- the farmer- really ought to cut his nails, she thought with some disgust, as she scrubbed the dirt out of her cuts.<p>

He was getting worse. On the first day he had been perfectly charming. By the second, he started glaring. By the third, he was criticising. By the forth, he was yelling. And by the fifth, he was hitting. Now, he was striking her and drawing blood. She couldn't bear the thought of what may come at the passing of another week. She had to get away.

She knew a girl wouldn't go unchallenged on the road. She looked at her reflection in the creek with some distaste, as she realized she'd have to cut her nearly waste length black hair. She also looked at her body; she'd have to find some way to deal with that. Curves simply would not work when passing for a boy. She thought for a long moment. She had overheard the Baron talking with the battlemaster about the ranger meeting, and knew the Ranger- what was his name? She couldn't recall- would be leaving for it very soon. Perhaps she could tag along.

Then she'd have to do something about the color, and perhaps her face. There was nothing she could do about the eyes, she thought irritably. She just hoped he wouldn't recognise her. But he would at least accompany her plenty far from the fief where she had been condemned. Perhaps she could be a jongleur. She wondered briefly if she was good enough, then discarded the thought and focused on her hair.

She would have to lighten it several shades, she decided. She knew there was some bleach up at the castle that she could use. She nodded. That's what she would do. She stood, and walked back to the farmhouse. She could hear Joshua yelling at his wife, and pointedly avoided any windows. She went to the small pathetic barn, where there were a couple of cows and a grey gelding. She threw the saddle blanket and saddle over the horse's back and tightened the girth, then swung up into the saddle. She spurred the horse out of the barn with the soft heels of her boots.

The horse trotted past the house and she heard the faint yells of the farmer behind her, and she spurred the horse into a gallop. The ground flew by under the gelding's hooves. The castle battlements neared as pink streaked the sky from the west. She danced her horse to the left and into the woods and unmounted, waiting for darkness to come.

An hour after sunset, she spurred remounted the horse and spurred him to the edge of the trees and out onto the planes behind the garrison, and then slid off an tethered him to the tree. She untied her red cloak and tucked it into the saddle, so the crimson wasn't so obvious that She slunk along through the grass to the front gate, watching as the guards paced back and forth and timing them mentally. Every three guards there was a gap of almost a minute where she could get in unseen.

She slid through in just one of these times, and shimmied around to the servants entrance. Inside, close, there were the cleaning supplies- and the bleach. She pushed open the door, shadows slipping around her. She expected to be called out any moment, but she wasn't. She slipped inside and stole one of the smallest bottles. She slid it into the pocket of her tunic and slipped back out of the door. On her way around the building, her luck faded.

A guard noticed her and opened his mouth to yell, but not before she called out her name. The guard paused, squinting to identify her. He recognized her after a long moment as one of the Wards, and told her it was past curfew. Obviously, he didn't know she had graduated.

"I just needed to run an errand," she said. "For the man I work for now," she added pointedly. The guard looked mildly startled, but then waved her off. She vanished through the gate, and out into the fields east of the castle to where she had tethered her horse. There were some lights from the south where the town was that flickered shadows across the fields, but she measured her movements in time, and glided unnoticed to her horse.

Alis led the gelding into the trees, and pulled out her cloak. Several meters back, Max trotted up to her. She spread the cloak on the ground, and the wolf curled up on it. She laid back on the cloak using Max as a pillow, his warm fur against her face a welcome change from the autumn air. She flicked the excess ends of the cloak around her, rolled into it with the wolf.

It only took a few breaths to fall asleep.


	6. Disguise

**Haha normally right now I'd be like "two reviews please before updating!" but I'm writing so fast I'm not even really giving you guys a chance... Anyways I hope you guys like it!**

* * *

><p>Alis woke to an odd burning against her hip. She frowned and looked down. The bleach! She must have rolled over it. It had broken and soaked through part of her tunic. In a panic, she tugged it out of her pocket; over half of it was gone. She struggled to get the tunic off of her and the burning away, rubbing at the bleach. Her eyes flitted around the woods, and she knew the nearest stream was a good half kilometre away. She cursed, and jumped onto her horse, half naked, and spurred him through the trees without even collecting her cloak. She was grateful that she had neglected to unsaddle the horse the previous night.<p>

The trees flew by and the burning in her side grew. She looked down and her side was pink and blotched, shimmering with bleach. Her hands were beginning to burn a little too. The bank of the creek reared up in front of her, and she slid the horse to a halt, jumped off, and dead sprinted straight into the river. She rubbed at her sides and hands, sighing as the bleach left her side. She scrubbed at her tunic, now a mottled color, and grimaced. She must have grabbed a very, very pungent bottle.

She trudged back up the bank, and kicked off her wet boots. She couldn't very well ride in them. She pulled her tunic back on over her head, sitting on a rock to dry. She looked at the bed of sharp rocks on the other side of the river, and realized she hadn't brought a knife to cut her hair. The rocks would make do.

She had the bleach with her now, and there was enough light to do her hair by. She pulled back on her boots to protect her feet from the sharp rocks on the other side of the river and trudged through the water.

She picked up several stones, inspected them, and decided on the sharpest one. When she ran her finger along the edge, it split open the skin on her finger. Good thing she played guitar, she decided; or else she'd be bleeding and she couldn't very well bleach her hair with an open wound on her hand.

She went back to the other side of the river and pulled her boots off again, sitting at the bank where her image rippled in the water. She put the cracked bottle to her right, and ran her fingers through her hair to get out some tangles. She held her hair firm and pushed the sharp edge of the stone against it, trying to make it look neat.

The end result was nothing of the sort. She shrugged; apparently, she'd be nothing more than a farm hand who couldn't afford a barber. Worked for her. She cut it as short as she could within reason, leaving about two or three inches straggling down her neck. She leaned forwards over the water, took a deep breath and stuck her head in, then snapped her head back again, water flying. She squeezed bleach out onto the top of her head, and worked it into her hair. She quickly rinsed it off her hands before it could start to hurt. She watched her reflection, and as the minutes ticked by, her hair lightened.

When it was a light brown, she waded into the mud of this side of the river, and held her breath before going under. She rustled her hair around under the water, getting rid of the residue of the bleach. She came up for air, and waded back. Looking at the water, she grumbled. She hadn't done a particularly good job. It was very uneven in color; some was blonde and some was brown. She decided she liked it anyway, though. Her hair was straighter short, and she had never liked the curls.

She nodded distractedly at her reflection, then stood and walked back to her boots. They were damp, but they'd do for the short ride back to where she'd left her cloak. She grabbed hold of the saddle, slid her right foot in the right stirrup, then swung her left leg over the back of the horse and pulled herself upright. She rolled her shoulders out, and cursed the horse for being so tall. He was a good 16 hands high.

She trotted him back through the woods, easily finding her way back through the rushed careless tracks from the gallop to the river. When she got back to her cloak, Max was gone. She shrugged; it was the way of wild animals. He was in no manner tame, after all. There were a few pink patches; very small and hardly notable; where the bleach had come in contact with her cloak. It wasn't to be expected a farm hand would have a perfect condition crimson cloak in anyway.

Two days. Two days until Will would leave, and she would try to get him to take her with him. Well, she thought, looking up at the sky; only one in truth. Perhaps one and a half. Tonight she would have to steal some supplies and something to pad her midsection with to neutralize her body. Perhaps it would make her look a tad bit bigger, too.

She slid off her horse and sat on her cloak, stretching out her legs and sliding her boots off once more to allow them to finish drying. The night would be long... she may as well get a nap. She leaned back and wrapped her cloak around her, the sun on her face. The horse nickered, and she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

* * *

><p><strong>I have some pictures of the characters:<strong>

**/profiles/blogs/hmmmmm**


	7. Sandy

**The link I tried posting on my other one wouldn't show up... the pics are at Max- Dan- Wiz . com /profiles/blogs/hmmmmm**

**no spaces. It's being idiotic and won't let me just include a link.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Will looked around his cabin, two saddle bags in his hands already packed. He paused, then grabbed his mandola from by the fire place, and walked out the door. Tug was waiting, already saddled, and Will tied on the saddle bags. He walked back inside, pulled his quiver on over his shoulder, grabbed his bow, and tied on his cloak. He flicked the cowl up, and went back outside, locking the door behind him.<p>

He mounted Tug easily, and the horse walked out of the clearing surrounding the cabin without prompting. Keely followed. Will looked around as he rode through the trees, taking deep breaths of the autumn air. Red, orange and yellow leaves blew around Tug's legs, catching the sun and the clear blue sky. The woods opened up by the castle and he took a right through the dirt road that went through the farm houses.

Tug trotted past the tavern Will had eaten at three days before, and out past the farm houses with the largest plots to where the woods closed back in on either side around the dirt track. He hooked his bow over the pommel of his saddle for a moment, reaching back into one of the saddlebags to overview his map for his rip once more.

The meeting was to the South-east, so he would have to take the next fork to the left. That would lead him into the next fief over, where there was a small town he would spend the night. From there he'd continue across the fief, then he'd have to turn east again onto a different track to Redmont. From there, of course, he knew the way by heart.

He rolled up the map again and returned it to the bag. For the sake of something to do, he looked at the trail in-front of them, reading the tracks there. Recently, a large horse had gone through with a single rider. Perhaps a day before there had been two men on foot. And before that, two girls and three guys. And before that he couldn't see much. He sighed, bored again. He looked at the trees around him, and then nudged Tug into a quicker trot. Up ahead, around the corner, is where the fork ought to be.

* * *

><p>Alis waited impatiently at the first fork Will could possibly take, mounted on her horse. Soon, she heard the faintest hoof beats of his horse. She fidgeted with the dirt smeared on her face, hoping he wouldn't notice. She pulled her cloak lopsided, trying to get it to cover some of her face but not her hair; show him as many differences as possible. He would probably keep the first mental image he had of her, and she didn't want him to make the connection later.<p>

His horse trotted around the corner, and he nodded at her. He took a left, and she kicked her horse to follow him.

* * *

><p>Will nodded to the boy wandering around the intersection on his horse. The boy looked at him and rode after him, but Will paid him little mind.<p>

"Ranger!" a somewhat high voice called. Will looked back over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows in question. "Can I ride with you?" Will shrugged, then turned back around. The boy rode up even with him, his horse a good 4 hands taller than his, but still leaving them almost on level height.

"Where are you headed, boy?" Will asked, in a bored tone. In truth, he was glad to have someone to talk with, rides alone were exceedingly boring. The boy hesitated.

"Anywhere. I'm setting out to make something of myself," he said. Will looked at the boy for a moment. He was small and his voice was high, but not so high as to be a girl's. He obviously hadn't hit his growth-spurt, Will decided.

"Respectable," Will commented.

"Where are you going, Ranger?" the boy asked, looking at him. Will frowned. The eyes were oddly familiar. The dark light pattern he had seen somewhere recently. Must be something common in this fief, he decided.

"A sorcerers convention," Will replied a little sarcastically. The boy's eyes widened, and Will threw back his head and laughed. "Ranger business."

"Oh," the boy said, nodding. "Can I ride with you to where you're going?" Will studied the boy for a long moment.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"They call me... Sandy," the boy said, hesitating just a half-beat. It was probably normal to hesitate before telling a Ranger your name, Will decided; after all, they were the 'black wizards' of the kingdom.

"You can ride with me, Sandy..." Will said, eyeing the boy. Sandy's face lit up. "... if you can keep up with me." On cue, Tug broke into a gallop, leaving the boy in the dust. Sandy coughed into his tunic, then spurred his grey horse to follow Will. Will looked over his shoulder and noted that the kid could ride. Sandy's horse was catching up with him, and so he spurred Tug on faster.

He ducked under a big heavy branch that went low across the path, and looked back over his shoulder and saw the boy getting to his knees on the saddle, then jump over the same branch and land straddled again on his horse on the other side of the branch.

Will nodded his approval, then turned back to face forwards. Up ahead there was a large tree, and he pulled Tug to a halt beside it, and saw the boy slow his horse down so he wouldn't be hurt by the sudden stop the Ranger horse had been trained for.

Sandy's grey horse bowed his head, clearly out of shape. The boy's face was alight with a grin. He saw Will's manola case, and looked at him in question.

"You play?" Sandy asked.

"Yes," Will said.

"Lute or Mandola? I can't tell by the case," the boy said. Will regarded him with interest. Most people just said it was a lute and were done with it.

"Mandola," Will said. Sandy smiled. "So, tell me. Have you heard of Redmont?"

"No," the boy said, a quizzical expression on his face.

"It's two fiefs over," Will said. "It's where we'll be tomorrow evening, if you choose to ride with me." The boy grinned.

"Does this mean I have permission to ride with you?" Will nodded. "Then I've always wanted to see a new place." Will smiled faintly at the boy, trying to mimic Halt in his appearance, although he broke down and smiled anyway.

He thought he could like the kid. He wasn't afraid of Rangers, at the least, and that was always in his favour. And he had spunk.

And, Will was incredibly bored and wouldn't mind riding with someone.


	8. Redmont

**Sorry about the rapidness of this chapter; I'm impatient to get to the exciting parts haha.**

* * *

><p>Will and Sandy rode the rest of the way to the next fief talking with each other. Will learned the boy's name was Sander, but everyone called him Sandy. His dad owned a farm two fiefs over but he had been in debt, and then his father had died and the farm had been sold, leaving Sandy and his older sister on their own. His sister had found work in the nearby town, but Sandy hadn't been content with that and wanted to go find something to make of himself.<p>

Will told Sandy little of himself. When Sandy mentioned he was now an orphan, Will sympathized with him, and mentioned that he too was an orphan. The boy had been somewhat surprised at the mention of a Ranger ever having parents, almost as if he had thought they weren't exactly human; then flushed at his own stupidity, never uttering a word of his thoughts.

At one point in midday, they dismounted, and between the two of them had some dried bread and salted meat, and heated up some coffee. Will had noted with some interest how the boy walked; he stepped with his toes first, rolling his feet in his steps slowly and catlike, but not walking slowly for it; the result was hardly any noise. Of course, the boy was no where near as silent as Will, but when he thought back to going through the woods with Horace, he was impressed by the boy's footsteps. Sandy also moved in a gliding walk, although not entirely in a straight line, as if he was blown with the wind. With a Ranger's cloak, or in dim light, or anything but that crimson cloak he wore, he would be hardly noticed. Farmhand indeed.

Will noticed the boy was looking at his longbow with interest, and asked if Sandy could shoot.

"I've never done more than a little itty bitty hunting bow," the boy confessed. Will considered him for a moment, then stood and unsheathed his saxe knife, and cut away the bark in a circle on a tree. A very small circle, because there wasn't enough room for distance. He then handed the boy his long bow and a single arrow.

"Really?" the boy had asked, awe in his face. Will nodded. The boy took a rough stance, not entirely proper, and tried to draw the bow. The 90 pound draw weight was too much for him, and he hardly managed a half draw. The boy scowled as he aimed and fired, missing the circle but still hitting the tree, and yelping as the string slapped his arm. Will nodded his approval; obviously he hadn't had any proper training or practice, and the boy was by no means an expert; he had only been ten meters away. But, he wasn't totally hopeless.

Will removed his arrow from the tree, careful not to damage the arrowhead. It was hardly lodged in the tree much at all, with the weak shot it had been.

At the inn where they stopped for the night, Will decided he would go in without his Ranger's cloak, so he could play his mandola without messing up the mysterious Ranger stereotype. Inside, Will asked Sandy if he knew any songs on the Mandola. He said he didn't, although if there was a guitar he could play that with Will. But, the boy did sing.

Together, Will played a few songs while Sandy sang along with him. Sandy had the ability to hit uncannily high notes for a boy, and that got them several silver coins. The innkeeper gave them a dinner of mutton and bread free of charge, even though they admitted they weren't jongleurs.

Will recalled once more the fond days he spent as a jongleur, and decided it didn't much matter if they had a free meal or not.

Despite the innkeeper's requests to have them another night, they left the next morning half an hour after the sun rose. As they rode, Sandy asked Will about what it was like to be a Ranger. The boy was incredibly curious, and he seemed totally fascinated with the concept. Will recounted stories from Skandia, from his first year as an apprentice, and from when he just became a Ranger. The boy was interested through the whole of it, and by the time his first tale was done, it was time for the noon day meal, and when he was finally done, they were riding into Redmont.

Will knew Gilan had been positioned at Redmont, and wondered if he hadn't left yet for the Ranger's meeting. Perhaps they could ride together. Will broke off the conversation with Sandy in thought, then spurred Tug into a trot as he got within a kilometre of where he knew the Ranger's cabin was that he had spent his apprentice years with Halt, just as the sun began to set.

Happily, he noticed that there were lights in the cabin. As Will dismounted, and Sandy pulled up even with him, Gilan opened the door and waved. Sandy dismounted, and looked at the cabin uncomfortably, unsure what to do. Will led Tug to a stable, where Gilan's horse Blaze whinnied a greeting. Sandy shifted uncomfortably, looking at Will with a question in his eyes. Will motioned him to come.

"Don't worry," Will said dismissively, unsaddling Tug.

"I don't want to intrude, I mean... I can go to an inn or something," the boy said, embarrassed.

"Nonsense. There's a perfectly comfortable couch, if you'd like," Gilan said from the door.

"Ah, well, thankyou," the boy said, uncertain still as he led his grey horse to where Will was hanging his tac. The boy quickly loosened the girth and pulled the saddle off the horse, grunting under the weight of a fifty pound saddle over his head. He hung his saddle and pulled off the blanket, and Will handed him a brush. Sandy nodded his thanks, and Will walked out of the stable and up the steps of cabin and gave Gillan a hug.

"An apprentice?" Gilan asked quietly, his eyebrows raised. Will laughed, and shook his head.

"The boy wanted to ride with me, so I agreed," Will said, looking over his shoulder to where Sandy carefully locked the gate behind him, patted his horse's nose, and walked up to the two Rangers.

"Hello," Gilan said, surprised to notice he was well over a head taller than the boy. He was tall as far as Ranger's went, but generally not that tall. "What's your name?"

"Sandy," the boy answered, shifting nervously. Gilan held out his hand, and the boy shook it. The boy's hand completely disappeared in Gilan's grasp.

"I'm Gilan," he responded. He pushed open the door, and motioned Will and Sandy inside. Gilan set some water to boiling in the fire place, and got out three mugs and a bag of coffee beans. Sandy noticed, with a barely covered laugh, he had an entire pantry filled with bags of coffee beans. Will noticed as well, with an amused grin.

"Planning on supplying the whole Gathering with coffee?" Will joked. Gilan looked confused a moment, then caught on to the joke.

"Only if the entire Gathering consists of you and me alone," Gilan responded. "And it was only a week long." Will threw back his head and laughed openly. Sandy grinned; he had already seen the Ranger's coffee addiction. Gilan gestured them to sit at the table while he prepared the coffee, then he sat the three mugs on the table and got out a jar of honey and spooned a healthy serving of honey into his mug. Will followed in suit, and Sandy, unsure of exactly what to do, spooned some into his coffee as well.

"So, Gilan," Will said. "How's Redmont running?"

"Good, thought the Baron misses Halt and Lady Pauline something awful now that they're up at Castle Araluen." Will nodded his understanding, and Gilan continued. "Maybe Halt will find some way to transfer back? If so, it'll mess up all our fiefs again. I don't think he'd do that."

"Sorry to interrupt," the boy said, eyes wide. "But, Halt? THE Halt? You guys know him personally?" Will and Gilan exchanged a glance.

"He was our master," Gilan said with a shrug. Will watched the boy's odd eyes, seeing the pieces fit together. The boy's eyes flew wide and he almost fell out of his chair looking at Will.

"Will Treaty?" the boy said, watching him. Will nodded with a grin. "Gilan... heard of you, too." Gilan grinned again. The boy wrapped his hands around his coffee, an held it to his lips looking over the rim at the table in an odd silence.

"You should wash that dirt off your face," Will suggested, motioning to the smears of dirt on his face. The boy flushed, embarrassed, and stood quickly. He left went to leave the room, then paused uncertainly. "The washbasin is in the room between the two bedrooms," Will answered the unspoken question. The boy vanished.

"So what's the deal with the boy?" Gilan asked.

"He asked to ride with me, and I agreed readily enough," Will said. "At the noonday meal when we stopped, he moved very quietly. I also let him shoot my bow. Nothing of an expert, and he didn't hit his mark, and he didn't reach a full draw, and he was only ten meters away- but he had next to no experience with a bow, which was remarkable. I estimate he had about 50 pounds of draw weight going for him. He'd make a good Ranger."

"He's small enough," Gilan joked. "Are you going to take him on?"

"Maybe," Will said with a shrug.

'I will if you don't," Gilan said with a grin. "I'm starting to turn into Halt." The two laughed together as the boy re-entered the room.

They sat around finishing their coffee and joking, before they decided it was time to go to bed before leaving in the morning for the next leg of their journey.


	9. The Arrow

**So guys, long story short: i broke my arm. it was a really bad break, my arm was at a funny angle and they had to put me under to set it and everything. So, typing is a serious pain in the booty but i have some movement back in my left hand now so I'm trying. There'll be typos and things, obviously, but you should be able to figure it out... enjoy!**

* * *

><p>"I'm almost as old as Halt was when he apprenticed me," Gilan said. "And he didn't take an apprentice until he was going grey. I'm looking for one you know, and Sandy seems like he's a good boy." Will and Gilan rode side by side, Sandy trotting ahead of them and looking about the woods.<p>

"Well get in line," Will said, smiling take the harshness from the statement. "I have been a ranger for almost 7 years now, Gil. i could use one too." Gilan grinned.

"Well if you don't want him for some reason..." Gilan continued, looking to where the boy rode ahead and was looking at the ground in great interest. Sandy dismounted, and they rode up to see what he was looking at. In the soft dirt were the faint outlines of wolf prints. To the two Rangers of course they were blatantly obvious, but they both realized most common folk wouldn't have seen it. But, if the boy had shot a hunting bow, he probably had principal tracking skills.

"Male wolf," the boy whispered almost to himself, then traced a jagged line in one of the forepaws with mild interest. "Scarred. Probably three or four years old." The Rangers exchanged a startled glance. The boy looked up and seemed to notice they were behind him for the first time, and jumped. He put his hand to his neck in surprise, then relaxed. He looked at them uncertainly, then swung back up on his horse in a comical struggle between small boy and large gelding.

Sandy spurred his horse ahead without a word to either Gilan or Will. The two looked at each other for a long bit before continuing after him. "I think I'll take him all the way to the gathering ground and see what Halt thinks of him," Will said uncertainly, now. "But I am taking him if he wants; I'll talk to him tonight about an apprenticeship." Gilan nodded. Will looked up at the sky and noted the sun's position; nearly an hour after they had paused for the noonday meal. A bit ahead they could see the boy pause his horse and glance down at the track, then continue again. Sandy had done this throughout the day, Will had noted, but now he paused where the boy had and saw tracks once more.

Faint outlines of raccoon paws, hardly notable. But they were there. And he was certain the boy had seen them. Gilan saw them too, and stared, open in his disbelief. Together, they continued after the boy, and each time they found tracks where he stopped. As the sun drew near the western horizon, and there was only perhaps an hour left of daylight, Will called to Sandy to stop and make camp away from the track with them. The boy jumped off his horse and looked back at Will, and Will gestured to a small hill they could camp behind out of view of the track.

The boy went with him, and threw his crimson cloak to the ground in one smooth movement. Not for the first time, Will was struck by the girlishness in the movement, and how the boy's face was familiar. He pushed the thought aside.

"I was thinking," Will said, "That fresh meat in a stew tonight would be lovely." Gilan and Sandy voiced their agreement. "Sandy?" Will asked, turning his attention to the boy. "Would you help me find deer?" The boy's face flushed.

"I'm no shot with a bow," He said, shifting uncomfortably.

"No, but you are a tracker," Will said. Sandy shifted uncomfortably, but nodded to the truth of the matter. "Good. Then we shall set out now while Gilan sets up camp." Will grinned at the irritated, pouting face of his friend. "Lead the way." The boy paused, then pulled off his boots. Will frowned for moment, but when the boy walked back out to the track his face cleared. Without the hard soles of the boot, his step was completely silent, feet bending around any sticks he failed to avoid, and soft steps lessening the crunch of leaves. Will of course needed no such help and could achieve the same with his soft hunting boots, but he admired the boy's forethought.

The ground sloped down from their camp to the trail, then continued on. Without pausing, the boy continued downwards through the small mountains in the outskirts of Redmont. In the valley he would soon come to, there was without fail a stream, where he could easily pick up a trail. Will nodded to himself once more; it was an obvious way to tracking. He followed in the boy's steps, then stopped in surprise. The boy's bare feet left no trace of his passage; the sticks were unbroken and his step didn't crunch the leaves to make noise, and as such they were filed the tactic away for future reference, and continued.

The stream was a wide one, with clear water and broad muddy banks that glimmered with mica. Here, the boy's steps left marks.

"What sort of deer are you looking for?" Sandy asked, and Will remembered how easy he had classified the wolf prints.

"A buck," he said slowly, trying to come up with a challenge to track. "Three or four years old, preferably with a limp."

Sandy walked with a cat-like grace, a smooth gate, across several deer tracks, looking at each one for a moment. Then, he picked out the heavy hoof-prints of a buck, and noted the size. 3-4 years, roughly, he decided. Or close enough. The left front hoof didn't fall evenly with the others, indicating a limp. Will watched the boy with interest as Sandy picked out the trail of a buck that fitted the criteria.

Sandy glanced up at him, then gestured to where the prints left the mud. They were no more than ten minutes old. The buck had passed parallel to the creek, out a good twenty meters. Sandy padded through the trees in the buck's wake, Will following silently behind him. Now, Will thought he could just make out the boy's foot falls, and he breathed in relief. The boy was getting unnerving.

Sandy paused behind a large bush, glancing around it, then gesturing to Will. Will looked around it, and sure enough, there was the buck, with a scar across his front left leg from an old injury. He pulled an arrow from his quiver, knocked, and aimed. The buck registered the hiss of the arrow too late to move, and it slammed through the eye and the buck fell motionless. Sandy whistled softly.

"Good shot," he said, and Will strode forwards. The grey shaft pointed up to the sky, the legs crumpled under the weight of the buck. Will looked at it for a long moment, deciding how best to get the carcass back to camp. Sandy saw his hesitation, and let out a piercing whistle. Will jumped and glared at the boy. Soon, however, he could hear the steady clop of a horse through the trees and saw the grey gelding Sandy rode.

"Well trained horse," he said shortly. Sandy shrugged.

"He would often be on the other side of the field so we needed a signal that would carry to call him back," the boy replied. Will didn't respond, because he was too busy throwing the buck over the saddle of Sandy's horse. He grunted under the 300 pounds of muscle and bone, but got him on the horse. The gelding snorted his protest, but stood firm. Sandy whipped the reins over the horse's head, and led him uphill, disdaining to go back the way they had come.

It was right about then that a huge dark blue arrow flashed past their heads.


	10. Apprentice, dear one?

**So guys, long story short: i broke my arm. it was a really bad break, my arm was at a funny angle and they had to put me under to set it and everything. So, typing is a serious pain in the booty but i have some movement back in my left hand now so I'm trying. There'll be typos and things, obviously, but you should be able to figure it out... enjoy!**

* * *

><p>The arrow thudded into a tree inches from Will's head. It was dark blue with raven feather fletching, a quivering onyx arrowhead over halfway buried in the tree and quivering. Tied to the end was a note.<p>

_Will_

_You are getting close to the Gathering ground. _

_No outsiders permitted._

_Get rid of the boy. _

Will frowned, and looked around for the shooter. Seeing none, he looked over to Sandy. Sandy was pressed flat to the ground, perfectly still, eyes fixed on the general direction the arrow had come from.

"Get to camp," Will told him, hauling him to his feet. Sandy looked at him, wide eyed, then at the arrow in the tree. His eyes caught hold of the note, and his face cleared to a calm expression even though he couldn't read it because of the way Will held it. Sandy grabbed hold of the reins and trotted the horse out of sight.

Will waited a minute after the boy vanished from sight, and then a figure melted out of the trees to stand on the path before Will, a few centimetres taller than himself. The figure was clad in green and grey, and pushed back the cowl of his cloak to reveal his face. Will recognised him as Travis, one of the fifth year apprentices. He recalled that Travis had gotten his longbow last year and had carefully made arrows to go with it, dying them with indigo.

"Who's the boy?" Travis asked, carefully pulling his arrow from the tree and untying the note before sliding it back into his quiver, where another 23 black fletched arrows protruded over his shoulder.

"I was considering taking him as my apprentice. I was going to ask him tonight if he'd like that at camp, over a nice stew of venison," Will said. As an after thought, he added, "And coffee." A grin broke out over Travis's face that he couldn't hide quick enough. Most Ranger's liked coffee, but Will, Halt, and Gilan were famous for their taste for the drink. "Would you care to join us?"

"I would love to, but I'm rather afraid I can't. I'm on border guard for the gathering ground. See you tomorrow, though," Travis said with a grin. Will nodded, and Travis dissolved into the trees. The boy was getting good, he thought. He might give Gilan a run for his money one day. Will turned and walked where Sandy had walked, following the big horse's footprints. He could barely make out the heel print of Sandy's steps.

When he got back to camp, the deer skin was hung on a string from a saddle bag, and meat was roasting on the fire. Some had been set off to the side, obviously for Will to make a stew. In the fire, three loafs of travel bread were cooking. They had been shaped oddly; rather than being flat, they were large balls as tall as wide. The crust was golden brown, another odd thing; normally it was either pasty white, or a burnt color. Gilan had a pot full of water out, and Will's bag of special herbs that he used to make stews. Will arched an eyebrow at the loaves, and he gestured to Sandy. Sandy looked up from poking the fire with the stick, and grinned.

"Butter," Sandy said, motioning to a yellow-white blob wrapped in paper. "We had a cow." Will nodded, and untied a pan from his saddle bag. Often he didn't travel with butter; it melted and made a mess. But, butter wasn't something to be snubbed when they had it.

"May I?" Will asked, gesturing to the butter. Sandy grinned lopsidedly, and passed the butter. He pulled out his throwing knife, and cut off a piece of butter. He put it in the pan and held the pan over the fire, watching it melt and bubble. He sloshed it around the pan, then added the meat to sear it. The meat crisped nicely, and he turned it over to crisp the other side; it added a lot to the flavour and texture of the meat, and made it so it wouldn't stew as long. He dropped the meat in the pot of water, and set it to boil over the fire. He threw in a handful of flower to thicken it, and added herbs and spices and let it boil.

He finally sat back, and Gilan handed him a mug of coffee. He had to pretend not to notice Sandy's barely covered smirk. Sandy pushed the loaves of bread out to the edge of the fire on the stones, so that they wouldn't burn but would stay warm.

"You know," Will said, bringing Gil's and Sandy's eyes to him. "You're very good at tracking, Sandy." Sandy's cheeks turned red, and he looked down at the fire. After a moment, Will added, "I've been a Ranger for a while now. I really should start thinking about getting an apprentice." Sandy's head snapped up, wide eyed.

"Are you...?" Sandy started.

"Well, you can track. You're not totally hopeless with a bow. And you can step quietly. And, you're small," Will said. Anger flitted through Sandy's eyes for a moment at the last statement, but then he realized it wasn't meant as an insult. "Would you care to be my apprentice?"

* * *

><p>Alis's mind raced. She hadn't ever intended to get involved with Will or the rangers like this; she had always hoped that he would escort her far away and she'd be able to start out fresh. Sure, she could track; she had to have some way to find the animals she drew. Sure, she knew how a bow works; when she was grounded after sneaking into the woods, she drew the archers that practiced below her window. Sure, she could step quietly; she had to be able to sneak up on the animals she tracked to draw them.<p>

Her height? Yeah she was short, but did he have to go and mention it? It was a sensitive subject. She fidgeted, and was all too conscious of Gilan and Will watching her. She realized with a shock that she did indeed want to be a Ranger's Apprentice. But that would mean there'd be increased exposure, and he might find out who she was; would he return her to the farm? What if he stayed at the fief and the baron recognised her? It was Will's fief that was her home, after all...

"Sandy? Would you care to be my apprentice?" Will repeated, worry in his expression.

"I... I have to think," Alis said, mortified that her voice came out soft and feminine and not the deeper rougher voice she had adopted over the last few days. Luckily, neither Gil nor Will seemed to notice. She wrapped her arms around her knees, trying not to look at Will; he looked somewhat confused and slightly hurt. She wished she could explain of course; but that would defeat the purpose.

After long awkward moments of silence, Will said, "The stew will be ready in about 5 minutes... someone get out the plates?" Alis looked up.

"No bowls?" she asked. He shook his head. She paused for a moment, then held out her hand for his already buttery throwing knife. He handed it to her after a moments hesitation, and she stabbed one of the bread loaves. He started and reached out to stop her, but by the time his hand found her wrist she had cut a circle in the top and detached it, leaving a bowl of bread. Realization dawned on his face, and she grinned at him. Gilan stood and got the plates, and she put the breadbowl on the plate with the top to the side to dunk. She carved the other two up just as quickly, and put them on plates as well.

Will now saw a good purpose in the height of the bowls as he spooned in the stew; they held it much better than the flat loaves they normally made, and the butter helped make a thick crust that would keep too much broth from seeping out. They ate quickly, savouring Will's delicious stew and very well some of the best camp bread they've had on the road before. They sat around the fire, and despite Gilan's best efforts, Alisandra didn't join in the conversation Will and Gilan had. After a while, he gave up, and Alis rolled up in her red cloak and slept.


	11. The Nightmare

**I got my cast yesterday, so I can finally straighten my elbow (finally- stupid splint) and type easier. The pain was back down as of this morning. So, I should be able to update more frequently. Hopefully I'll update everyday, but that's really optimistic. Probably reality is closer to three or four times a for the next three weeks, more... I have nothing else to do. (I won't lie, I based my character sorta off me; I do guitar and art. I can 't do guitar now, and I am a very hands on artist... both hands.)  
><strong>

**Anyway, enjoy and review please!  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Will sat back against a stump, watching the sun rise. Sandy mumbled in his sleep, saying seemingly random words like Baron, Rangers, Paint, Max, and Will. Gilan complained, half awake, about the mumbling, but Sandy didn't stir from his sleep. Gilan finally gave up, and came to sit by Will. Will stood and put water to boil over the fire, and put a bag of ground coffee beans by the fire and sat back with Gilan. Sandy suddenly bolted upright, his hands fluttering around his mouth, stifling a scream. Terror was in his eyes, and he wrapped his arms around his knees. He looked at Will, mumbling No over and over again.<p>

Gilan beat Will to his feet, and sprinted over to Sandy's side. Sandy didn't even look at him.

"Sandy?" Gilan asked, hand on his shoulder. Sandy didn't respond. "Sandy?" he shook Sandy, but Sandy didn't so much as glance at him. His eyes were locked on Will, mortified.

"Sandy?" Will asked, kneeling in-front of the boy. Will put his hand on Sandy's knee, and the boy screamed and scrambled back.

"Dead," the boy muttered, terror in his eyes. "Dead dead dead."

"Who's dead, Sandy?" Will said, worried the lad had lost his mind.

"You," the boy whispered, hoarse.

"I'm not dead, Sandy... See?" Will said, taking a step forwards and touching his chest. The terror began to fade from the boy's eyes.

"You died," Sandy said persistently, though he wasn't as frightened. He allowed Will to get closer.

"No," Will said. "It was just a dream." The last bit of terror faded from the boy's eyes, and fell to the ground. He put his head in his hands, and Will went slowly to his knees and hugged him. Sandy stiffened, but didn't bolt.

"It wasn't a dream," the boy said, looking up at him with those weird blue eyes. "It was a nightmare."

"What happened?" Will asked, sitting back on his heels. "It helps to talk."

"You died," Sandy said, shuddering. "An arrow, straight through your heart." Will frowned to himself; why it would shake the boy so, he couldn't place. But he didn't push. After a moment, Sandy stood and brushed himself off.

"I'm sorry about that," Sandy said. He noticed the water was boiling over now, and pulled it from the fire. He retrieved the coffee mugs from where they sat from the night before, and added some grounds to the bottom before pouring the boiling water ontop. Sandy handed Gilan and Will each a cup before sitting down with his own. They drank it black; no one felt like getting up to get the honey. After they finished the coffee, Sandy stood and tossed his grounds into the trees, then returned and did Will's and Gilan's for them.

He rinsed out the mugs with the leftover warm water, and stashed them in a saddlebag. Gilan stood and kicked out the fire. Will stretched, then gathered up other stray items from around the campsite and stowed it in the bags.

"Will?" Sandy's voice broke the silence that had engulfed the camp. Will looked up, and arched an eyebrow.

"Yes?"

"Does the offer from last night still stand?" the boy asked, uncertainly.

"Of course," Will said, taking a moment to realize the cause for the uncertainty in the boy's voice. He discarded it; everyone had nightmares.

"Well... I think I would like that," Sandy said, shifting his weight uncomfortably. "Being your apprentice, I mean." Will grinned at the boy.

"So that's a yes?" Will asked. Sandy nodded, hesitantly at first, but then with vigour. The boy smiled at him, and Will smiled back.

"So, shall we be setting off? If we go soon, we ought to be able to get there just after sunset," Will said.

"Sir?" Sandy asked. "Now that I'm your apprentice, would you mind telling me where we're going?"

"No need to call me sir, goof. Just Will," Will laughed. "And we'll be setting off for the annual Ranger's Gathering, where all the Rangers meet up and talk."

"And have coffee?" Sandy asked innocently.

"And have coffee!" Gilan bellowed, laughing nearly doubled over. He straightened, still chuckling, and threw the last of his bags over Blaze's rump and tied them in place. Will and Sandy did likewise with their own horses. They did the basics for getting their horses ready for a days ride; checking their hooves, tightening the girths, fitting the stirrups, making sure the tack was in place and undamaged. Sandy swung up, and Will and Gilan followed suit.

With mild, companionable chitchat about the weather and the woods, and a few questions from Sandy about the Ranger corps, they rode through the trees toward the Gathering Ground. They made good time, and only an hour after their noon day meal (which has been a bit late; they had been too absorbed in conversation) Gilan ushered them to a stop.

"Dismount," he said in a whisper. Sandy looked at them in confusion, and arched an eyebrow in question to Will's unconcealed grin.

"Halt?" Will whispered back. Gilan nodded. Will slid silently from his seat, and as Sandy started in his downward slide to the ground Will caught him and placed him soundlessly on his feet.

Will threw the grey gelding's reins over Tug's pommel, and whispered a command in his ear. Tug started trotting away, digging his hooves into the dirt to not mark the change in weight that would show Will dismounted. Will whispered for him to stop, and got all the saddlebags and put them on the gelding's back to make up for Sandy's weight; the gelding wasn't trained like the Ranger horses. Then he gave the command for him to go again, and Blaze followed in his stead.

Sandy pulled off his boots and held them in his hand, then padded to the tree line where the leaves would better cover his steps. Just the barest outlines of his heels showed up in the sand. Will ghosted into the trees beside him, and Gilan followed suit, brushing out their steps.

"How's your aim with a rock?" Gilan whispered in Sandy's ear. It sounded like a rustle of the wind, Sandy hardly realized they were words.

"Reasonable... within a foot of my aim," Sandy responded.

"Distance?"

"thirty metres," Sandy whispered.

"Good, good. Now, what you're going to do, is you are going to throw a rock at a tree close to the man we meet up with. Alright? Don't let him see you. And take off that ridiculous red cloak; you look like a little red robin in a hood. We ought to call you Robin," Will said. "Wear this instead." Will un-shouldered his own cloak, and draped it around Sandy's shoulders. It was big for the boy, and completely covered the crimson cloak below.

A quiet clop of hooves registered in Will's ears a fraction of a second before Gil's and Sandy's. He shoved Sandy to the ground, and fell with him. Gilan froze dead still. A man in a Ranger's cloak, cowl up, on a Ranger horse trotted around the corner. Gilan ghosted through the trees alongside the man, and the man paused. He looked to the right of the path, the opposite side Sandy, WIll, and Gilan were on. He then looked down at the path, where the faint scuffs of erased tracks still showed. Gilan ghosted out of the trees behind him.

"Hullo, Halt," Gilan said easily. Halt turned, totally unstartled, to look at his former apprentice.

"I'm not slow, Gilan. Where's Will, now?" Halt said, smiling despite the harshness of his words. Gilan's shoulders sagged, seemingly crestfallen.

"Ello, Halt," Will said, rising from beside Sandy. Sandy sat perfectly still, eyes casting around for a rock. A small one, half a foot from his left hand. Will strode out of the trees and further down the path to stand beside Gilan, sufficiently drawing Halt's attention from where he might see Sandy.

"Yes, it does seem you got the best of us," Gilan said, frowning unhappily. "But it's a tradition. Remember that time when you first brought Will, here, to the Ranger's Gathering? What was it you said to me?" Sandy's hand crept towards the rock, and he moved it to his right hand. He rose slowly to a crouch.

"I do believe he said something along the lines of 'keep in mind all the factors... like apprentices'," Will added. Will made eye contact with Sandy, and he took this as his cue. Just as realization dawned in Halt's face, a rock whirled inches in-front of his nose and thudded solidly into a tree about five feet from him. He spun, and made eye contact with Sandy, astonishment fading too mild irritation and amusement.

"So, which one of yours is he?" Halt asked, looking back over his shoulder.

"Mine," Will said. "His name is Sandy."

"Well hullo, Sandy," Halt said, looking back at the lad. "Pleasure to meet you." Sandy nodded.

"Pleasures all mine," he said breezily. If Will hadn't known better, he would have said the boy was raised in court; the boy was full aware of who he was speaking to. Will whistled, and Tug trotted back around the far corner leading the gelding, Blaze on their heels.

"Shall we proceed to the Gathering..." Will said, then added, "And brag about how we won?" Halt scowled as Will, Gilan, and Sandy mounted.

"You didn't win."

"Oh, yes we did. Give it up," Gilan laughed, and they set off down the trail towards the Gathering once more.


	12. Robin Hood

**R&R please! Sorry this one took so long; I've been doing the make-up tests/projects/quizzes from when I was out for surgery and stuff. I wasn't rushing on any account; i'd been hoping for a second review on that last chapter.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>They had made good time and gotten to the Gathering Ground with only 4 days of travel; but that had been planned on, because they'd have to be three days early to intercept Halt now that he was in charge, and had to be there first.<p>

First thing when they set up camp, Halt tossed Sandy a long-bow.

"Show me what you can do," Halt said, giving the boy an arrow and pointing to a tree some fifty metres away. Doubt flashed across Sandy's face, but he knocked the arrow.

Sandy closed his eyes. In his mind, he envisioned the archers below the window, in their stance, nailing targets a good 75 metres away. He pictured the boy who practised farthest from the window, and moved his feet to where the archer's had been. He turned his body, pulled back, and opened his eyes. On a sudden impulse, he released tension and unknocked the arrow, moving it to the wrong side of the string, and moved the bow to it's side, so the arrow was resting on top with his arm. He dropped to a kneel, and pulled back. The different muscles that were involved in pulling like this resulted in a full draw, and he pictured a line in space connecting with the tree trunk. He moved the bow to match the path, and released. It took him approximately 20 seconds.

The arrow whistled, and thudded into a dead log behind the tree, missing it by half a centimetre. All together, an amazing shot.

"Rubbish!" Halt declared hotly. "Some first year apprentice you are! Can't even shoot a bow from the proper position! And, more over, cannot even hit at only fifty meters!" Sandy flinched, taken aback. He thought the distance had been quite far, and the shot quite good. Especially for only his second time shooting a real bow.

"Halt," Will said softly. "He's been my apprentice as of this morning." Halt spun and fixed him with an astonished stare.

"One day? ONE?" Halt responded, momentarily letting his emotions master him. The surprise on his face was all too evident.

"Yes, one... More like half of one, really... And I think that is quite an interesting stance," Will said. "You don't have to rise as tall and make so much of yourself a target for an enemy. Sort of like a crossbow, but quicker to reload and more accurate."

The surprise faded from Halt's face as he considered Will's words.

"It wouldn't work well deep in the woods; too much space is needed..." Halt said.

"But for areas where you're shooting from behind, say, a palace wall, it would be ideal. Theoretically, only your head would have to show to shoot," Gilan threw in, taking the longbow from Sandy and hauling him to his feet.

"Do I get a bow?" Sandy asked, looking at the Rangers.

"Yes; a recurve... you will in a week or so," Will said.

"Actually, Rodger is graduating to a longbow this Gathering," Halt said. "He can have that recurve."

"I suppose," Will said with a shrug, trying not to smile at the excitement in Sandy's eyes.

"But for now," Halt said, "we have matters to discuss. Let's set out and get a camp-fire going, shall we?" He turned and walked to the other end of the Gathering Ground, where the shelter had been set up and their tents were pitched, three traditional green tents and Sandy's odd blue tent (naturally the only one Alis could find to steal was something odd like blue).

Will knelt by the fire ring, and got out his flint and steel and struck up a fire as the others Gilan got out a bag of coffee beans and Sandy found a pot in a bag. Halt got out a large water bag and filled the pot and put it to boil over the fire, and Sandy grabbed out 4 mugs and they all sat down together around the fire.

"So, what's up?" Will asked, settling back against a log.

"So, as you well know," Halt said, shifting into a more comfortable position. "King Duncan is in battle in the Eastern Steppes fighting a war that should prevent raiders from interfering for future reference."

Sandy looked up in surprise; he hadn't heard anything about King Duncan being away.

"Of course," Halt added to Sandy's unspoken question, "He hasn't wanted to make it public in-case it makes the kingdom vulnerable in some form or another not having a king on the country's soil." Sandy nodded, and got up and took care of making coffee.

"And what does this have to do with anything...?" Will prodded.

"Baron Giligan of Biurman fief died two days ago," Halt continued. "A new Baron took his place named Notsmark. He's very corrupt; he's put in place illegal taxes and has been abusing the citizens."

"Who's the Ranger of Biurman? Thomas, is it? Can't he deal with this? He's more than capable," Gilan put in.

"Thomas is getting old," Halt said, shaking his head. "He was, in fact, hoping to be retiring next year. But, this may be a good experience for an apprentice to have under his belt; dealing with what ought to be a simple, political matter." He looked at Will now, and accepted a cup of coffee from Sandy with a word of thanks.

"Brilliant," Gilan said. "Can I come too?"

"If you'd like," Halt nodded. "I'm going as well; being cooped up in castle Araluen is driving me insane. Crowley promised to cover for me while we were taking care of this."

"Good. When do we leave?" Will held his mug of coffee patiently as Sandy passed him a jar of honey.

"After the Gathering; it wouldn't do to not be here, and we simply must get the boy the equipment," Halt said. Will nodded, and Sandy sat up straighter.

"So what all do I get?" he said, trying to keep the excitement from his voice and failing miserably. Halt smiled slightly.

"You get two knives," Halt said, unbuckling his double knife scabbard. "You will get a Saxe and a throwing knife," he said, pulling each out as he said the name. He threw the throwing knife at the rock some ten meters away, wedging it in the crease between earth and stone. "You'll get a recurve bow, and simply brown oak arrows." He flicked an arrow out of his quiver, and tapped the shaft. "This'll be brown, not black. You'll get your own to dye or make when you get the longbow."

"Cool," Sandy said, eyes wide.

"You'll also get one of the cloaks, and a scabbard. And hunting boots," Halt said, looking at the boy's shabby old boots with some slight disdain. "Proper ones." Sandy blushed.

"So I don't get my cloak?" he asked, fingering the crimson fabric.

"No. You look like a Little Red Robin with a Hood. Little Red Robin Hood," Halt responded.

Will nudged him in the ribs. "That's what I said!"

"Fill up my mug again, would you Robin Hood?" Gilan said jokingly, passing the mug.

"Robin Hood," Sandy said thoughtfully, topping off his mug. "You know, I rather like that."

"Robin it is!" Will said, bumping Sandy jokingly with his shoulder. Sandy grinned, and passed Gilan back his mug.


	13. The Gathering

**R&R please!**

* * *

><p>The three days following before the official beginning of the Gathering were filled with other Rangers arriving. Sandy (Or as Gilan and Will insisted on introducing him, Robin Hood) was introduced to so many Ranger's and Apprentices he couldn't keep them all straight. (Though Alis did secretly decide a second year apprentice named Ray was cute). There was only one other first year apprentice, who's name was Mauch.<p>

Mauch followed Robin around like a puppy, even though he was older than Robin by a year. Mauch had eyes that came too far out of his head, and long messy blonde hair; he also wasn't exactly... "slim"... or anything close to it, really, either. Mauch mimicked everything Robin did, and Robin couldn't stand it. He tried to avoid Mauch by hanging around Will, but Will just laughed at him and told him to bond.

Much to Sandy/Robin's horror, when they were sitting at dinner together, he overheard Gilan offer to take Mauch with them to take care of the business up north; and Mauch's master accepted! (With many many thankyous for taking the boy off his hands.) Sandy tried frantically to gesture a no to Gilan when he started it up, but Gilan too obviously ignored his motions.

On the first official day of the gathering, the apprentice Sandy remembered was named Rodger, pulled him to the side and gave him a recurve bow. Rodger also gave Robin a quiver full of plain brown shafted arrows. Sandy/Robin grinned, and hugged Rodger. He froze for a moment, then patted Robin on the head. Robin scowled, and released Rodger.

"I'm not a small child," Robin huffed, and stormed away. He tried to keep the grin from his face, and failed miserably. He couldn't resist a glance over his shoulder, and laughed aloud at Rodger's bewildered expression.

"Hullo, Robin Hood," Will said with a grin, tapping his apprentice on the shoulder. "I see you have your bow, finally. How about you come with me, and we will shoot and talk."

"Alright," Robin said eagerly, glancing over his shoulder at Mauch. "Privately, right?"

"Absolutely," Will said, with a face all too obviously forced to be kept straight. Will threw his arm around his apprentice's shoulders, and led him away from the main group of Rangers, who were sitting and chatting. Mauch seemed to know this was no place for him, and stayed with the others. Will lead Sandy through the trees, to a separate clearing that was relatively narrow, only twenty or so meters wide, but a good 200 long.

It was caused by a large, narrow strip of stone that kept the trees from growing up. On the stone, a line was painted, dividing the clearing into two chunks, one about 15 meters wide and the other having the better part of 200. On the larger side, there was a thin layer of grass growing, presumably to help prevent damage to arrows. On the left side of the range, there were targets that were only ten meters away, and it varied as you got closer to the right side to the full 200 meters away.

Will pulled an arrow from his ever-present quiver, knocked it on his ever present longbow, planted his left foot firmly on the ground in-front of him, sited, and fired. The grey-shafted arrow whistled away from the bow, and thudded into the target well near 175 meters away. As near as Robin could tell from this distance, it was perfectly in the bulls-eye of the target.

"You try," Will said. Robin looked at him uncertainly, then at the 175 meter target. Will laughed, and ushered him into the middle of the place, just behind the line that had been pasted on the stone. He pointed to a target only thirty meters away, and said, "That one." Sandy nodded, and placed the quiver on the ground. He pulled an arrow and knocked it on his recurve bow, and knelt to the ground. He held the bow sideways, and fired before Will could tell him to pause and try the right way.

Will looked at the target, and saw the arrow, quivering, in just the second ring of the target, barely a hands-width from the centre of the bulls-eye.

"Not bad, not bad. Now, try upright," Will said, pulling the boy to his feet. Sandy pulled out another arrow, knocked it, and stood uncertainly. His feet were in roughly the right position, but Will tapped them into perfect position with his longbow. The lad had turned the rest of his body so he was facing full forward, and Will turned his shoulders so he was facing sideways like was proper. He then fitted the bow properly into Robin's hands, and then Robin took over. His toes moved just the tiniest bit into a more natural stance. His head turned to face down the range, and he locked his arm straight out in front of him, and pulled the notch back to the corner of his mouth. He kept both eyes open, sighted, and shot.

He missed the target by about four centimetres.

He cursed quietly, and pulled out another arrow and tried again.

After emptying half his quiver on the field, one finally thudded into the target, in the bulls-eye though not quite in the centre. He paused, drew another arrow, and fired again. This time, it hit the second ring. Not better, but more consistent.

Of the last ten arrows, nine of them hit the target, and one of them punched into the very middle of the bullseye. Will nodded to himself, and settled down on the ground, folding his arms behind his head. "Alright, now you have to go find all of them." Robin looked at Will with a frown, then set out across the range, picking up arrows as he went. He pulled the eleven arrows that hit the target out without damaging them, and managed to find all 13 of the ones that had missed. He walked back across the line and started to sit down next to Will.

"Nope nope noooooope," Will said, eyes closed. "Keep shooting." Robin scowled, but stayed standing. He shot two more arrows into the target before Will interrupted.

"Alright, now shoot for the one that's a little further away," Will said, now sitting up and watching his apprentice shooting. Sandy paused, then moved to shoot at the one 40 meters away. This time, it took him 5 arrows instead of 12 to find the proper way to shoot and hit the target. After hitting it 8 times in quick succession, none managing to get into the bullseye, Will called for him to stop again.

"Now, move between the two targets," he said, pushing himself to his feet. "Every other arrow." Robin frowned in concentration, moving back and forth between the two. He moved slowly, so slowly in fact Will was on the verge of impatience. A minute to move, aim, and shoot? Unacceptable. After Robin had shot four times, he lost patience. "Faster." Robin did so, only taking 10 seconds to knock, aim, and shoot. Three of his remaining five shots went wide, and only one managed to get in the second ring of the bulls-eye.

"Practice, I suppose," Will said, remembering the hours he had spent behind the cottage with Halt, shooting, practising, throwing, walking in silence, and he abruptly got more patient with the boy. Will pulled out his saxe knife and his throwing knife, and took the bow from the boy's hands, replacing it with the two knives. Together, they talked as the sun set about anything from the upcoming trip to weapons to coffee, as Robin shot his bow and threw the knives.

* * *

><p>The next day, they gave Robin his own cloak and his knives and scabbard. He spent the whole day practicing, and even managed to get a perfect bulls-eye in a fifty meter target with the bow. There were three more days of Gathering before they'd set out, and they passed with gallons of coffee and stew and hours of laughter and practicing.<p>

On the very last day of the Gathering, Will came to get Sandy from the practice range and led him to where the horses were. Robin looked at him questioningly, then back at the horses. There was something odd... was there one too many? Yes, yes, there was. There was another bay horse, just a shade smaller than Blaze's 15 hands, but taller than Tug. There was a huge white star between the eyes, which were big and brown and intelligent.

"Her name is Nudge," Will said to his apprentice quietly. In response, the horse nudged Robin so hard he nearly fell over.

"Is... is she mine?" Robin asked, looking at Will in a mixture of hope and surprise. Will grinned and nodded. Robin patted the horses muzzle, and stroked her neck. He put his boot in the stirrup and started to swing up, then paused, seeing the expression on Will's face. He looked far too smug. "... What's the catch?" Robin paused, putting his foot back on the ground.

"You caught me?" Will said, unhappily. "You didn't... not fair." Robin heard a quiet chuckling that turned into huge shaking laughter, and saw Halt watching them. Will's face was turning very red.

"Looks like your apprentice is bright, Will! Maybe you could learn something!" Halt hooted. Halt held his sides and stopped laughing, though he was still grinning. Will scowled, and walked to Robin's side and whispered a word in his ear, explaining the password for Ranger horses.

"Ahh," Robin said, taking his left foot out of the stirrup to be on the ground by his right, and whispered in the horse's ear. "Moonrain," Robin breathed. Nudge's ears pricked up, and Robin swung up into the saddle, a huge grin on his face. Now, he really felt like a Ranger's Apprentice.


	14. Max

**R&R please!**

* * *

><p>On the day after the Gathering ended, and everyone was going home, Will found Robin sitting with an old Golden Leaf Ranger. Will vaguely knew the man, Tanner, who had retired in one of the first years of his apprenticeship. Tanner had been a top-notch healer and doctor, best in the corps.<p>

"I see, so the heart basically can be healed by..." Robin trailed off, looking up at Will. Robin grinned and waved at him.

"That's the basic idea, anyway. You never know when that sort of knowledge will come in handy," Tanner finished, gesturing for Will to sit down with them.

"So what are you two talking about?" Will asked, flopping down on the ground next to Robin.

"The lad here just wanted to know if there was any way to heal a heart that's been shot through with an arrow," Tanner said. Will arched an eyebrow, looking at his apprentice's bright red face. "I was explaining how, theoretically you could, if you were fast enough... if you accomplished the whole surgery in about two minutes, anyway."

"Interesting," Will said mildly. "Anyway, Robin, we should be packing up and setting out."

"I already packed," Robin said quickly. "Even put everything in saddlebags on Nudge... what do I do with my gelding?"

"Sell him, use him as a pack horse, whatever you want. He's your horse," Will said dismissively. "So how about we get going?" Robin stood, waved to Tanner and gave him his thanks, and started for the horses. Will held up a hand for him to stop, fixed his quiver and scabbard belt, and pushed him off again.

Tanner snickered. "Teach the lad to keep his belt on straight, eh?" Will rolled his eyes, and set off after the boy. When he passed by where his tend had been, he grabbed hold of his bags, and continued for the horses.

"Mauch!" Will hollered, looking around for the boy that would accompany them. A figure scurried up to Will, reminding him to an extent of a mixture of a bug-eyed frog and a chipmunk. Not exactly a flattering comparison, but true none the less.

"Hullo, Master Will," Mauch said, fidgeting. "You called?"

"Yes... are you packed and ready to go?" Will asked.

"Of course, sir," Mauch responded, ringing his hands nervously. Will fought back a grimace. "Whenever you're ready, sir."

"... Call me Sir one more time, and I'll string you up by your thumbs," Will said calmly, smiling to show he was kidding.

"Of course s- my lor- Er, Will?"

"Will is fine," Will responded, laughing. "Go on, get ready."

"I'll put everything on Chariot?" Mauch said, saying the statement as a question. Will nodded, and the boy scurried off. Will whistled, and Tug looked up and trotted over to him. He swung the bags across Tug's rump and tied them in place, before swinging up into the saddle of the little horse himself. He trotted Tug in a tight circle to make sure everything was properly balanced in the saddle and stretch out, then trotted him to where Robin was sitting on Nudge with the gelding tied behind him. Mauch was scrambling up onto his mount, and Gilan was trying hard not to laugh at him... he wasn't entirely succeeding.

"Well, are we ready to be setting off?" Halt asked, bringing Abelard to stand beside Will.

"Yes," Mauch said happily. Suddenly, Ebony looked up from where she was by Tug and bounded off into the trees. Will frowned, but looked at Halt and nodded. They set off down the path that headed north-east, which would fork into two paths heading North and East in half a kilometre.

Robin suddenly looked up, and Will paused to find out what he was listening for. Then he heard it; a scuffle, and a loud bark from about fifty meters to the right in the underbrush. Another yelp sounded, closer this time, and two furry figures rolled out into the path near under Tug's hooves. Tug reared a bit to avoid stepping on them, and took a few steps back into Abelard's nose. Abelard whinnied his protest, but backed up.

"MAX!" Robin barked out, and a blob of silver fur detached itself from a ball of black an white. Ebony sat up slowly, licking a cut on her side. The silver one limped over to Robin, and sniffed around the horse's hooves. "Maximus Wallawitz, just who do you think you are? You know better! You best not be setting to fight with that sweet dog." The silver wolf bowed his head and tucked his tail between his legs in shame.

"He's yours?" Will said, mildly irritated. He wasn't that irritated with his apprentice, however; Ebony HAD been the one who had raced into the trees, he realized.

"Yes," Robin said distastefully. Max lay down and looked up at Robin with big, apologetic eyes. Robin sighed, swung down, and looked at the wound on Max's paw. "Not too bad... you'll live, goober. Ebony, come here hun," Robin said, holding out her hand for Ebony, and Ebony trotted over to him. She bared her teeth unhappily at Max, but didn't make a move for him. Robin looked at her side, and poked it gently. "Just a scratch, but perhaps we should bandage it." He reached into the bag on his hip, and pulled out white gauze.

Ebony shied away, but Robin but a calming hand on her head. He wrapped Ebony gently, and she licked his face. He chuckled, an pushed her away. He then wrapped up Max's paw, and then coiled his cloaks into a nest on the back of the grey gelding. He paused, looking at the nest, and the big wolf, and then back up at the nest that was higher than his head.

Without a word, Gilan slid down and hauled Max into the nest. He patted the wolf in, easily seeing over the saddle and even the wolf's head. Robin grinned at him and nodded his thanks, then looked at Ebony. Ebony (surprisingly, considering she went against a wolf) fared much better, though she wasn't altogether happy with it (naturally). Robin swung back up into the saddle, and looked at Will over his shoulder. Mauch was watching Robin like Robin was some weird idol, and Will had to cover a grin.

"Good job handling that," Will said passively. "Go on." They continued down the path to where the track split and took the northern one, which would lead them straight to their destination. They'd be in Biurman fief by nightfall, and they should get to the castle the next day around noon. They travelled mostly in companionable silence, though sometimes they would have small fits of conversation.

The woods parted into the northern fields as the sun was setting, and they entered Biurman. In the opening between the two woods, one of crimson and orange oaks and maples, and one of evergreen, there was a little town with an inn with a welcoming gust of smoke rising up around them.

"I'm guessing this is where we will be staying tonight," Gilan commented, looking at Halt.

"That it would seem," Halt agreed. His lip curled. "Hopefully it's clean."

"Hopefully they have lots of good food," Mauch said, patting his considerable stomach. Robin looked over at him with a crinkled nose, and Will was forced to put his hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh at his apprentice's expression.

"Hopefully they have decent food," Robin countered quietly. "No need to be greedy." Mauch's face turned into a tomato, and he slunk down in the saddle of Chariot.

Soon, they were infront of the inn. They dismounted, and Robin tethered the gelding to the frame; no one had to worry about the other horses, seeing as they were all Ranger's horses.

"Shall we be going in?" Gilan said, getting Max down from the horse and handing Robin his mottled cloak. He accepted it with a grateful smile, and threw it around his shoulders. Gilan then turned and pushed open the inn door, and together, they walked inside.


	15. Fall

**R&R please! As for the Max and Nudge thing... I actually didn't do that on purpose, haha. The Max thing was just a common name for a dog/wolf, so I used it (I know I tend to use really weird names so I figured there should be ONE normal name), and the Nudge thing was because it's a good name for a horse, you know, because they nudge you on the shoulder when they want an apple...  
><strong>

* * *

><p>The tavern was dead silent, several pairs of less-than-friendly eyes fixed on the group of five.<p>

"Rangers," one man broke the silence, then spat to the side. "Why so many? Who be you?"

"I'm Gilan," Gilan responded. "This is Mauch," he said, pointing to Mauch. "This is Will Treaty," he said, pointing to Will. Several eyebrows rose. "This is Halt," he pointed to Halt, and that name got a gasp. "And that would be Robin Hood." Robin waved half heartedly into the silent tavern.

"Robin 'Ood," another man snorted. "Big name for such a little laddy. A mighty ring to it, that has."

"Inn Keeper," Will said. "Can we have some coffee and stew here, please?"

"Of course," the little man behind the counter said, getting out mugs and bowls. The Rangers sat at an abandoned table in the corner of the room, and the man who had spoken stood, straddled his chair, sat, and folded his arms over the back. He watched them with scarred, dark eyes, then spat to the side again.

"Why all the big names?" he asked, looking around. "Will Treaty, Halt, Gilan. Thought it was one Ranger, one Riot?"

"Reunion of friends," Halt said shortly. Robin took note on how Halt didn't mention there was a mission involved. "And apprentices, naturally." The big man turned his attention to the two younger ones. His attention shifted away from Mauch with a grimace, and he focused on Robin.

"Hullo, little Robin 'ood," the man said, squinting at the boy. "You seem oddly familiar. You a lord, anywhere?" Robin started to shake his head, then paused.

"I'm an orphan," Robin said slowly. "But, my uncle does own a manner." The man squinted harder and leaned forward.

"Wouldn't happen to be one down in Lafway, would it? Those eyes seem familiar. Ah, I know! Locksley, is it? Locksley manner? The same crazy eyes." the man said, clapping his hands together. "Never knew the old hoot had a nephew; could swear he only had a niece. Didn't he only have one sister, and didn't she die before she could have a second sucker?"

"No..." Robin said, uncomfortable now. "He had... ah, a brother."

"Perhaps," the man said thoughtfully. "You look an awful lot like your cousin, though, don't you? What was her name? Alis, was it?"

"Yes..." Robin said, very uncomfortable now. Will's eyes narrowed, regarding his apprentice. "Anyway, how do you know my uncle?"

"Used to work for him. Then his sister died, and the girlie went to the Ward, and he went bonkers. Fired half of us. Baron kept the girl because he was worried bout sending her to her uncle."

Robin just nodded, and Will watched the exchange with great interest. How had he not known the boy was related to Alis? It was in the face, the eyes most certainly. In fact, if it wasn't for the hair, they could have been identical twins... Will shook his head, and refocused as the inn-keeper came over and handed around bowls of stew, and returned half a moment later with mugs of coffee.

"Will you be having rooms tonight?" The inn-keeper asked, looking at the faces around the table and settling on Halt's as the leader.

"Yes. If you have a room big enough for five, that will do, if not, we'll be having two rooms."

"Very well... two rooms it is," the inn-keeper said. He eyed their cloaks, which were dirty and travel worn (all except Robin's of course, considering it was brand-new), and raised an eyebrow sceptically. "You have the money for this?"

In response, Robin dropped three gold coins on the table before anyone else could react. The inn-keeper nodded, collected the coins, and went back behind the counter and began polishing things with an oily rag. Robin became conscious of the eyes fixed on him, and realized how stupid it had been to do that- ah, well, what sort of person was stupid enough to attack five men that were so obviously Rangers?

Slowly the tide of conversation in the inn resumed, and they finished their stews and coffee, and had one of the girls working in the inn show them to their rooms. Will, Robin, and Mauch would share the larger of the two, and Gilan and Halt would get the smaller. When all had been set up and they were sitting on the beds, Gilan and Halt made their way into the other room to bid goodnights, before retiring to their own room.

"You know," Robin said, looking out the window as Gilan and Halt closed the door behind them. "It's a lovely night. I think I'm going to go for a short walk before bed."

"That is a wonderful idea," Will said, standing from where he had been sitting on the bed. "Would you like to come, Mauch?"

"No," the boy shook his head. "I'm tired. Night, have a nice walk." Robin turned and walked to the door, looking at Will. Will nodded, and together they exited the room. Like most inns, the bedrooms were on the second floor with a tavern, stables, and the rooms where the inn-keeper and his wife stayed on the bottom floor. They walked down the creaky wooden stairs and out the door into the crisp autumn air, stars and moonlight turning the whole country side blue and silver.

So absorbed where they in the night, that they didn't notice the three men in the shadows beside the inn. Will later blamed himself, he should have been more alert; but why should there have been an attack on such a brilliant night? Robin too blamed himself; why had he put the coins out so carelessly? Will paused as Robin walked on, and turned in a circle, eyes closed, arms spread wide, and breathed in the sweet night air of the northern country.

Robin's muffled scream forced his eyes to snap open, and his eyes fixed on Robin in the shadows. A huge man held the boy from behind, a hand over his mouth, a knife to the boy's throat. Without thinking, Will knocked an arrow on his ever present bow and leveled it with the giant's eyes.

"I have two companions, Ranger. Surely one will be able to stab the boy before you get them both," the man said. Will hesitated, realizing that even though he could have all three down in about ten seconds, they could stab the boy from 3 feet away faster. "It would be such a tragic loss, to lose the apprentice instead of his purse?" Will lowered his bow ever so slowly. One of the men with free hands cut loose Robin's purse, and the other held out his hand for Will's. Will released the tension in his bow to throw the purse. In the moment of catching the purse, the men were distracted. He pulled back the arrow and fired in the space of a heart beat.

Will seemed to see what happened next in slow motion. As the man fell, with his dying breath, he plunged the knife into Robin's side. Robin's eyes widened and his knees buckled, his hands grasping at the knife in his side, and looked at Will pleadingly. The boy said one word before his eyes closed.

"Will."


	16. Apprentice's Breath

**R&R please! I wanted to make you guys wait longer, just to build up the suspense, but I decided against being a meanie-butt... at least, too much of one.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>"Help, Halt! Gilan!" Will yelled at the top of his lungs as he shot the other two men. "HELP!" he dropped his bow, and sprinted the few meters to his apprentice. Robin's face was pale, his eyes closed, perfectly still, his hand lose around the knife in his side. But he was breathing. Will curled his arms around the boy and stood easily enough; Robin was small, and Will was in perfect shape.<p>

Will ran back towards the inn, yelling all the while. "HALT! GILAN! HELP! ANYONE! HELP!" He slammed through the door of the inn, bolting up the stairs and kicking open the door to the room he and Robin shared with Mauch. Mauch was sitting, sleepy eyed.

"Will, what- oh my god," Mauch said, jumping to his feet. Halt and Gilan sprinted into the room, their hair wild from sleep. Will put Robin on the bed, and dropped to his knees beside him. Robin's eyes fluttered weakly as Will ripped his shirt up to the rib cage away from the knife.

"No, not the shirt..." Robin mumbled, trying to push Will's hands away. Will swatted his hands away, looking in confusion at the thick white padding around his midsection that the knife stuck up through. He didn't hesitate for long, and pulled the padding away from around the knife. He blinked in surprise at Robin's stomach; his- or her?- sides curved, in a very un-masculine way... a girl? Will pushed it away, and looked at the dagger sticking from his apprentice's side.

It wasn't too deep; the padding had seen to that. But it had hit a major artery, and Robin was losing blood fast. Already the bed was crimson, and the torn fabric around Robin was much the same. Will reached into the bag on his hip and pulled out his sewing equipment and sterilizers.

He carefully removed the dagger, and Robin's eyes rolled up into his- her?- head and he (she?) blacked out. Will padded down the wound, pouring sterilizers and rubbing alcohol on his apprentice's side. Quickly, he stitched it together, applying as much pressure to the cut as he could to try to get the blood to thicken and stop flowing so freely from the artery. To his relief, the flow of hot blood from under his hand slowed, and he slowly released pressure and bound Robin's side tightly with gauze.

The whole process of stitching it and pulling away the shirt took only around three minutes. As Will pulled the knot in the gauze tight, the inn-keeper walked in, somewhat sleepy eyed.

"What's wron- oh my god, what happened?" the innkeeper said, walking quickly to Will and Robin.

"Some thugs had a knife, you giant twat," Will snapped, the tension from everything building up. He thought that his apprentice would live... but he couldn't be sure. His stomach turned at a thought: what if the knife was poisoned, like the arrow that had hit Halt a couple years back? He shuddered and swallowed.

"I thought she was a boy," the inn-keeper mused, looking down on Robin's unconscious body. Wrapped tightly in the bandages, the part of the shirt that remained across her chest, Robin was obviously a girl.

"So did I," Will said, uncertain how to deal with the new information.

"Well, that's unfortunate. I had come to like your apprentice," Halt said mildly, putting a hand on Robin's forehead to take his- her, Will reminded himself fiercely- temperature.

"What?" Mauch asked, confused. "What's unfortunate? The whole stabby deal, or that she's a girl?" Robin's eyes fluttered and her fingers twitched with the fabric, then she lay still once more.

"Well, both. But I'm afraid there can't be a girl in the corps," Halt said, sitting back on his heels. Robin coughed for a moment, blood staining her lips, before she lay still once more. Will frowned, worried; was a lung punctured, or just a cut in her mouth? He knelt, and listened to her breathing, and decided that she must have just bit her tongue.

"And why not?" Mauch said, totally confused. Halt blinked.

"Well, there just hasn't ever been one. It's...tradition," he explained.

"Halt, you of all people should know tradition means precious little," Will said sharply. "Be more open minded, Mister Banished." Halt flinched, and Will regretted his harsh words immediately; Halt had been banished on purpose in order to be able to track down Will when he was held captive by Skandians, and had probably saved his life in doing so.

"Perhaps..." Halt said reluctantly.

"I'm not going to tell him- her- she can't be my apprentice because of her gender. Considering Alyss, I know gender means nothing when compared to capability," Will said. "If Robin lives, she will still be my apprentice-" Will broke off suddenly, realizing just who Robin was, as the name Alyss floated around his head... Alis. Alisandra. "My god."

"What?" Gilan asked gently, looking at Will with some concern. Will quickly explained to them about Alis, from the drawing of the rabbit in the woods to last seeing her with Joshua. Robin, hearing her real name, stirred and opened her eyes sleepily as Will finished the story.

"What happened?" she mumbled, moving to sit and gasping, laying still abruptly.

"You were stabbed," Gilan said softly.

"Stabbed-?" she started, then looked down and jerked in surprise. She pulled the blanket up as though suddenly hiding her body would prevent them from knowing she was a girl. Her face burned red, and she pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. After a moment's thought, she looked up at Will with horror in her eyes.

"You- no, please," she started, a begging tone in her voice. "You know who I am? Don't take me back. Please, don't make me go back. I'll- I'll leave, you've never heard of me or from me never seen me. Just, please."

"I'm not taking you back," Will said firmly. "And, if you want, I still want you as an apprentice." Robin's eyes widened.

"Really?" Robin said, surprised. Will nodded. Robin smiled, but the effort was ruined by another cough and blood covered her hand. She grimaced, and put her head down. After a moment, her eyes closed and her body went limp.

Will thought she was just unconscious again, until he realized she wasn't breathing.


	17. Little John

**R&R please! I wanted to make you guys wait longer, just to build up the suspense, but I decided against being a meanie-butt... at least, too much of one.**

**In the next few chapters, there will be a few characters coming in who are some of Robin Hood's legendary Merry Men... Like Little John, Alan of Dale, Will (already have a Will, eh?), Jack, and Mauch.**

* * *

><p>Will's heart nearly stopped right then. He dropped to his knees, fingers probing Robin's neck for a pulse."Robin? ROBIN?"<p>

There wasn't one.

His hands fluttered around, trying to remember what his medical training had told him to do in these situations, but his mind was too fuzzy.

"Stand back now," Gilan said, pushing Will back and kneeling where Will had been only a moment before. He brought his fist down on Robin's chest five times in rapid succession, then felt for a pulse. Still none. He did it again, tilting her head back and opening her windpipe this time.

Still nothing.

"She needs air," Halt said, and immediately Mauch dropped on the other side of the bed and breathed into Robin's mouth. Robin's eyes flew open, and she coughed, nose crinkling.

"My god, who just waved rancid stew under my nose? I was having a splendid dream..." Robin said, looking at them. Will collapsed onto the bed, head in his arms, letting out a relieved, shuddering sigh.

"What in the Devil's name is going on here," said a voice, and behind the inn-keeper appeared the man who had spoken in the tavern below earlier in the evening.

"She got stabbed," Mauch said.

"She? She who? You weren't travelling with a gir-" the man's eyes focused on Robin. "Alis?"

"Hullo, Little John," Robin said, smiling tiredly. Will arched an eyebrow; the man stood over two meters tall.

"What happened?" the man said, suddenly very worried.

"She got stabbed," Mauch repeated, mildly irritated at having to say it again. "She just died."

"I just what?" Robin asked, confused.

"Died. I had to breathe for you," Mauch said. "Gilan hit you a few times."

"Oh," Robin said, eyes wide, and very subdued. "I didn't know that's what the stew smell was." After a moment, she said, in all sincerity, "Thank you, Mauch, Thank you, Gilan. I am in your debt."

"Let me see the wound," the man said. Robin moved to undo the bandages around her stomach, but Gilan stopped her.

"It's bound by a Ranger," Gilan said, calmly. "It's fine."

"He can see," Robin said mildly. "Never hurts to have a second opinion. He was the physician on my uncle's manor."

"Oh," Gilan said, standing and making room for Little John. The big man knelt, and cut the bandages away. They came away crimson in his hands, and he examined the cut for a moment.

"It's small, and not too deep, but he had good aim," the big man mused. "No poison, though. Probably just shock that stopped your heart. But, to keep the blood loss in check, we'll be needing lots of fluids, and perhaps something small and metal to heat up and properly seal the wound... I'm afraid all i have is my copy of my new lord's seal. Anyone have something that would work?"

"I have my oakleaf," Will offered, pulling out the silver oak-leaf, but the big man just shook his head.

"Not flat enough or small enough, and not the right metal," Little John said.

"I have my sword hilt," Gilan offered, and the big man frowned in concentration before shaking his head.

"I think the seal will work better," Little John said. He pulled a ring off his finger, and showed it to them. It was a bow and arrow crossed over each other. "My lord works with hunting rather than farming," he offered as way of explanation. "Plants don't do to well this far north."

"it'll work," Robin said, and Little John nodded. He paused, and looked around for some place to start a fire in the room. In the corner, luckily, a small brazier was already going. He pushed himself to his feet and walked over to the brazier, plunging the ring into the coals. Robin looked over at Will, and saw him fidgeting, a worried expression on his face. His hands fluttered around his sides.

She reached out and grabbed his hand, and squeezed. It wasn't much of a comfort for him; her grip was far too weak. She realized this in a moment and let her hand drop away.

"I'm sorry there's nothing I can do," the inn-keeper said, addressing Will. "We don't have any physicians in the town, I'm afraid."

"It's alright," Will said, ringing his hands again. Little John turned around, the ring glowing a brighter red than the leaves on the trees outside. As he walked slowly to Robin's side, it turned to a dull throbbing orange.

"This is going to hurt a litt-" Little John paused, and reconsidered. "No point in lying, actually. It's going to hurt alot. You ready?" Robin nodded, and without hesitation, Little John pressed the ring to her side.

Now, Robin wasn't the sort of person who their first reaction to pain was to cry out. Instead, all her muscles tightened against the pain, which meant she couldn't speak unless she tried. So, naturally, she was completely silent. Will felt a surge of pride for his apprentice, an absurd pride he supposed considering she was only his apprentice by scarce over a week, but he was proud of her. When Little John pulled the ring away, a clear outline in angry red flesh depicted the bow and arrow.

The bow was about as long as Will's thumb, and the arrow fit over the bloody line from the knife. Robin slumped back in the bed, letting out a ragged breath.

"May I sleep?" Robin asked, looking at Little John.

"Yes," Little John said slowly, thinking for a long moment. "Your body shouldn't lapse again."

"Thank you," Robin told him, then swept her eyes around the room. "All of you." She brought her hands up under her head, and fell fast asleep. This time, there was the reasuring smooth movement of her chest, the quiet sound of deep breathing.

"I'm going to stay up and watch her," Will said. "Just to make sure."

"We'll take turns," Gilan said, laying his palm on Will's shoulder. Will nodded his thanks, and Little John coughed quietly.

"I'm afraid we haven't been properly introduced, Will Treaty," Little John said with surprising softness for a man his size. "I am John Naylor. My friends call me Little John, though."

"I am Will to my friends and enemies," Will said smoothly, holding out his hand. "Thank you." Little John shook Will's hand and smiled.

"Where are you going?" Little John asked, curious.

"Ranger business," Will said shortly, unwilling to give out information on their mission.

"Oh, the baron problem?" Little John asked.

"Yes," Will said, mildly surprised. He then realized that, hullo, these people LIVED under this man, they obviously knew the problems at hand.

"May I be of assistance?" Little John asked. "The Baron is just begging for a log in his head." The big man slammed his fist into his palm with a meaty smack.

Will hesitated, but couldn't see a reason to tell him no. "We're going to TRY and be diplomatic," he said. "But, if it resorts to violence, another fighting hand would be good."

"Thankyou," Little John nodded. "Downstairs, dawn?"

"Actually, I think we should wait till noon," Halt said. "To see if Robin can travel."

"Right, right," Little John said, nodding again. "Midday. Well, I'm off to bed. Just holler of something is amiss."

"Will do," Gilan said. Little John and the inn-keeper turned and left the room, and Gilan looked at Will. "Just knock on the wall when you want a rest, and one of us will come in to keep watch for you. Alright?" Will nodded, and Gilan and Halt left the room.

For the first time in several minutes, Will noticed Mauch. Mauch looked like he was mildly in shock, and Will realized he had barged in and dumped Robin on his bed because it was closest to the door.

"Sleep in my bed," Will told him, pointing to the largest of the three. Mauch looked at him, but didn't protest. He walked numbly to his bed and lay down, and soon was asleep. Will dragged Robin's mattress over to the bed Robin was on now, and sat down to keep watch.

It would be a long night.


	18. Alan a Dale

****R&R por favor!****

* * *

><p>Throughout the night, Robin only had one more lapse. Around dawn, she stopped breathing, although her pulse was still constant; all they had to do was wake her up and she started breathing on her own.<p>

By midday, she could sit up without grimacing, and insisted she was fine. Will wouldn't let her get up though, because he was worried moving would reopen the stitches.

"One more day," he promised. "Just one more, then we'll go. Okay? Just one more. Just spend the day in bed."

"Fine," Robin huffed. The day passed slowly, and Robin didn't have any more problems. By sunset, Little John said she would be able to move the next day, although at an admittedly slow pace. They let her get out of the bed then, and helped her down the stairs (which she complained about loudly. "I don't need no stinkin' help!") to have dinner and coffee in a more comfortable place. The inn-keeper was taking advantage of this time to replace the bloody bedding.

That evening, a minstrel showed up, playing a small harp. His voice was good, Robin thought, but not near so good as Will's.

The minstrel was very interested in them, (naturally. Five Rangers weren't a common sight.) and introduced himself as Alan-a-dale. After a long conversation with Gilan, Alan was interested and asked if perhaps he could join them as well.

"The more the merrier," Robin said with a shrug, when Will hesitated to answer. Will wasn't sure whether trusting the minstrel was an intelligent plan, but he hesitated to tell his apprentice no. Little John was one thing; he had proven his worth, and Robin knew him. But this minstrel was a stranger. Deciding against his better judgement, he figured he could just keep an eye on the man.

After that was settled, the seven sat around the table companionably. Alan-a-dale looked up, and picked his harp up.

"Any of you sing?" he asked, a merry light flickering in his eyes.

"Will does," Robin said quickly.

"Robin does," Will said, nearly ontop of his apprentice's words.

"What songs do you know?" Alan asked, calm and open, strumming his harp aimlessly.

"Do you know the River song?" Robin said eagerly.

"Naturally," he responded, picking out the complicated tune Will remembered Alis playing on the guitar. Once again, he realized the small, quick girl across the table with the raggedy blonde hair was the strong, elegant young girl with the long black curls he had met in Lafway. He remembered the song well.

"__The River she is flowing__," Robin sang in a high, smooth voice. Will and Alan quickly picked up the song, and they sang together.

"__flowing and growing  
>The river she is flowing<br>back to the sea  
>Oh Mother carry me,<br>Your child I will always be.  
>Oh Mother carry me,<br>back to the sea.__

__The fire she is glowing__  
><em><em>Flowing and Glowing<em>_  
><em><em>The fire she is glowing<em>_  
><em><em>light upon me<em>_  
><em><em>Fire and Water work as one<em>_  
><em><em>sing until our song is done<em>_  
><em><em>Fire and river enchant you dear<em>_  
><em><em>I come to drown your deepest fears.<em>_"

The three of them sang many songs together, and ended up with several copper pennies on the table infront of them. Only an hour after sunset, however, Robin grew very tired and headed for the stairs. Just as she staggered on the first stair, Halt steadied her arm. He glanced over his shoulder and nodded at Will, indicating he would take care of her. Will smiled his thanks, and Halt helped her upstairs.

After a few more songs with Alan, Will went upstairs as well with Gilan and Mauch, after agreeing with Alan and Little John to meet up around mid-morning outside. Will, Halt, and Gilan worked out a schedule for watching Robin that night (of course not mentioning it to Robin, because she would have naturally argued the point) and then Halt and Gilan went to their room, Will again taking first watch.

"Will?" Robin said softly after Halt and Gilan left, and Will was looking out the window. Will turned.

"Yes?" Will said, just as softly, in order not to wake Mauch.

"Tell me about the king, please?" Robin whispered, eyes on the hesitated.

"He's a very kind, good king," Will started. "He does what's best for the people, for his friends and family, for everyone but himself really. He's selfless, and looks out for others." Will made his way to Robin's bedside, and sat down on the mattress beside her.

"He sounds like someone worth fighting for," Robin said, glancing over at him.

"He is," Will replied. "He's a strong man, and a great king. And one day, his daughter will make a beautiful, wonderful, kind queen."

"You sound as if you know them both very well," Robin said, tuning to look at him with those strange eyes.

"I do," Will said, glancing at her then back up at the rafters. "I know Evan- Princess Cassandra better, though."

"Evan-?"

"When we first met, she went by the name of Evanlyn," Will said, and she turned her gaze back to the rafters. "Back with Morgarath was still alive, his army invaded Celtica when the Princess and her maid, Evanlyn, and their travelling group were crossing the border. The only one who survived was the princess, and she found her way to us. She didn't trust us, naturally, and went under cover of the name Evanlyn."

"Sounds like an interesting tale," Robin murmured.

"We have many tales. She saved my life multiple times." Will sighed at the memories. "Together, we found a bridge that, left whole, would have destroyed the kingdom. We burned it, and in the process were caught by Skandians, who turned us into slaves and took us to Skandia. In Skandia she saved my life, and then we turned around and saved Skandia. Later we went to Aredia together, where she saved Halt's life, Gilan's life, and a few others to boot. Then, later again, we went to Nihon Ja, where she and my fiancée made a long journey and brought an army that not only saved my life, Halt's life, and her husband's life, but also the emperor of Nihon Ja."

"She sounds quite remarkable," Robin replied. "Tell me about this burning bridge, and Skandia."

Will began weaving his tale, and just after burning the bridge and being captured, he paused for remark, only to hear the deep breathing that showed his apprentice was fast asleep.

In the silence, he thought about his apprentice. Naturally, realizing who she was explained alot to him. Just about everything, in fact. Even down to why she ran; he would have, if he had been left with Joseph.

Joseph stirred more questions in his mind. What happened when the baron discovered? He'd most likely be overjoyed. What would happen with Joseph, though? The train of thought was rather unsettling, so he turned away from it.

He glanced to the window to gauge the time, and decided it was time to wake Gilan. He stood, and rapped twice on the wall. In a moment, Gilan was in the doorway, gesturing to Will to go to sleep. He pulled his mattress so Gilan could sit on the end to watch Robin more comfortably, then curled up and fell into a deep blissful sleep.


	19. Authors Note

**I just got a hold of the eleventh book, so I'm going to read all those stories before continuing so I don't step on the author's toes.**

**It'll probably only take a couple days, so Saturday I SHOULD have one ready for you. Thanks!  
><strong>


	20. Setting on a Journey

**OK sorry about that. This week's been totally hectic: Halloween Party, cast off, end of quarter & exams, etc. Forgive me!  
><strong>

**If anyone wouldn't mind helping me out, I have a Percy Jackson one I'm doing too that has no reviews yet... thanks!**

* * *

><p>Light streamed through the window, turning the walls golden and warming Will's face. He woke with a start, wondering why Halt or Gilan hadn't woken him up for his shift watching Robin, and saw Halt fast asleep in Robin's bed, Robin sleeping peacefully with her head on his chest.<p>

Will couldn't help grinning at the sight, and crept to his feet and out the door. He walked into the next room, tapped Gilan on the shoulder, and held up a finger to stop Gilan's mumbled question.

Gilan sat up slowly, thinking there might be a threat, then noticed Will's grin stretching from ear to ear. Will tread silently to the door and glanced back over his shoulder, gesturing for Gilan to get up and follow him. Together, they ghosted down the hallway back to Will's room and through the door.

Robin had moved and was curled into a ball, her head still on Halt's chest, and Halt had his arm flung across the bed and his head back, snoring softly. Mauch was sitting up in the corner of the room, grinning. Gilan snickered, and Halt's snoring broke off and he opened his eyes, frowning. He noticed Robin's head on his chest and lay still, not wanting to disturb her, but glared over her head at Gilan and Will, who broke out laughing. Robin frowned sleepily and readjusted herself, waking up slowly and noticing she was on Halt sat up hastily, wincing and putting her hand to her side.

Mauch, Will, and Halt started laughing so hard they nearly cried.

"Are you- Are you alright?" Will got out between laughs, putting his hand on his apprentice's shoulder and throwing his head back and laughing.

"Fine," she mumbled, her cheeks bright red. Halt was scowling.

"We were comfortable," Halt grumbled, irritated, but it just made the others laugh harder.

"Nice job at keeping watch, Halt," Gilan laughed, doubling over and holding his knees, giggling like a schoolgirl.

"I would have woken up," he grumbled, mildly upset.

"Like you woke me for my watch?" Will said, and even Robin giggled.

"Oh hush up would you?" Halt snapped. "I'm old. I need my rest." He pushed himself to his feet, wriggling his bare toes on the floorboards and glancing around for his boots. Robin stretched and stood as well, and Gilan, Will, and Mauch got their laughter under control and pushed all the mattresses back to where they had been before. Robin grabbed the saddlebag with her stuff in it that Will had brought up for her the day before, and rumaged through it for some clean clothes. Naturally, it was all boy's clothing, but that was fine by her.

She hesitated, glancing at the bloody padding she had used around her midsection a couple days ago, and figured she could go without now that they knew who she was. She ushered the boys out with their stuff to go change in Halt and Gilan's room, changed quickly, and set to buckling on her knife belt (which she had to tighten more now that the padding was gone) when they were bakc, knocking on the door.

"Come on in," she responded, and Will pushed open the door with Mauch trailing behind them. Robin slung her quiver on, and tied her mottled cloak in place, flipping the cowl and arranging it properly so she could get to her quiver. Will and Mauch collected their own saddlebags, slinging them over their shoulders, and waited for Robin as she finished arranging her cloak and quiver. Then they each grabbed their bows and saddle bags, and headed for the stairs.

Will hesitated, reaching out for Robin's bag. "Want a hand?"

"I am perfectly capable of carrying a saddlebag, Ranger," she replied, heading down the stairs. "It's not like I am incompetent." Will scowled, and went down the stairs after her. At the base of the stairs, Halt was snickering at him.

"Looks like she has my sense of humor," Halt said, smirking.

"Oh, but she abides by mine. 'Oh, I think I'm just going to sleep on-" Will said, mimicking a higher pitched voice. He didn't get very far before Halt dealt him a swift jab to the ribs, and Halt walked away from him in a huff. Will grinned and followed him outside, where Gilan already had the six horses out, with Max and Ebony milling around the horse's hoofs. Both the canines had completely recovered over their short rest, and were seeming to get along fine.

Will walked up to Tug, holding out his hand and patting his muzzle. He slung his saddlebags across his rump and tied them into place, then checked Tug's girth to make sure it was tight and in place. He glanced up at the sun, and figured it was getting close to the zenith and Alan and Little John should join them soon. There wasn't really enough time to sit down to a noon-day meal, so they could just as easily get some stew from the innkeeper and eat in the saddle from mugs and wash it down with their waterskins. Just as he had the thought and headed back towards the inn, Little John walked out with his own saddlebags in his arms. He nodded at Will, then continued past him and into the barn.

Will made his way through the door and up to the bar, waiting for the inn-keeper to notice he was there. It didn't take him long.

"What do you have for lunch?" Will asked.

"We have some bread and leftover stew that's heating up over he fire. Want some for the road?" he asked, noticing that Will was already in travelling clothing with the distinctive mottled Ranger's cloak on.

"That would be brilliant," Will said. "I will be right back with some mugs to put them in, if you won't mind." The innkeeper nodded, and turned to set about slicing up bread.

"Hullo, Ranger," Alan's voice said as Will turned and headed for the door. Alan-a-dale had his saddlebags ready and had on high riding-boots, with his instrument case slung over his back and a grin on his face.

"Hullo," Will replied, pushing though the door and holding it open for Alan. Alan nodded his thanks, and headed for the barn. He paused at the door and glanced back at Will.

"What'll we be doing about lunch, then?"

"Mugs of stew for the road," Will replied. "Bring me your mug when you're done." Alan nodded, and vanished into the barn.

Will walked over to Tug and dug through his own saddle bags for his coffee mug, figuring it would hold plenty of stew for a noon-day meal. "Give me your mugs, then," he said, glancing at Little John, Robin, Mauch, Halt and Gilan. They each turned and dug through their bags, digging out coffee-mugs.

"I'll help," Mauch said, gathering half the cups and leaving the other half to Will.

"I will, too," Robin said, holding her own cup and glancing up as Alan led his horse out of the stables with his mug in hand, holding her own hand out for his cup. The three of them walked back into the inn, where the inn-keeper was waiting with seven chunks of bread, and he a big pot of stew with a ladle sticking out. He dealt out a healthy serving into each, and dropped a chunk of bread into each mug ontop. Will slid a gold coin across the table, nodded his thanks, then gathered three of he cups into his hands, leaving Robin and Mauch to each take two back outside.

Little John's, Alan's, and Robin's gelding all sniffed each other curiously, the five Ranger horses ignoring them completely. They handed off the mugs to the men in the saddles, and Halt held Robin's cup while Will helped her up into Nudge's saddle. She took back her mug, and then Will and Mauch mounted, little words being said around the mouthfuls of warm, rich stew.

Together, the six men and the girl rode off down the road through the autumn breeze, focusing on their stew. So focused were they on their stew, it took them 3 minutes to realize they had gone the wrong way down the road.

"Good stew," Will commented as they turned around, laughing, and headed off towards the castle.


	21. The Baron

**If anyone wouldn't mind helping me out, I have a Percy Jackson one I'm doing too that has no reviews yet... thanks!**

* * *

><p>The castle loomed above them, with towering grey spires and carved water-spouts that reminded Will for all the world of the ruins that had been the castle of Gorlan. In some places, murky bronze bound around the building in a decorative pattern, looking as though someone should white-wash the whole structure.<p>

The garden out front was neat and precise, but the flowers were wilted and the white marble statues were brown with filth, like they hadn't been washed since the new baron took place (and no one had bothered to water the roses, either). The great gates were smeared with tar and mud, but under that Will could see traces of what looked like a great silver portcullis. He imagined that the whole place had been magnificent a month ago, but no one had touched it since. Upon entering the courtyard, he realized he was right.

Inside, many servants walked around in tattered clothing that had once been magnificent, lines creasing even the youngest faces he saw, and buckets of muddy soapy water in their hands. Some of them were doing the personal bidding of men-at-arms, and the men laughed and sat about lazily with mugs of beer and ale in their hands. The barracks for the men were in pristine condition, and all the servants were being forced to work there and there alone.

As they entered, from the door a chubby man who was balding stormed out. He was barefoot and in silk pajamas, a hat in disarray on his head, and three servants were trailing after him with his clothing in their arms. He began yelling obscenities at the men-at-arms, telling them to go use their weapons for something useful, like getting meat for his stew.

The men laughed and rolled their eyes, but stood and staggered around for a moment, alcohol in hand, getting their weapons. As they headed for the door, the man's eyes followed them and caught sight of Will and his companions (A strange group in the eyes of the Baron; five Rangers, one who was no older than 15 and another who was most certainly a young girl, then a jongleur and a very large man who he couldn't seem to identify).

"YOU," the man- who was obviously the Baron- yelled. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?"

"I do believe we'd be standing," Halt replied, straight-faced. The Baron's face began to turn red, his ears looking like carved tomatoes.

"I KNOW THAT," he bellowed. "WHY ARE YOU HERE? GET OUT."

"We are here on King's business," Will said.

"THE KING ISN'T HERE."

"Please, if you wouldn't mind, take your volume down," Halt said tartly. "My ears can only take so much. And just because he isn't here doesn't mean he doesn't have business." The Baron just glared at them, then turned on his heel and took his clothing from the three servants and stormed into the castle. The seven riders exchanged a glance and dismounted, gesturing for a servant to come and take away their eight horses. Max glanced back at Robin and she gestured for him to go with the horses, but Ebony stayed with them (it was only logical; one was trained and one was a wild wolf).

"This is worse than I'd thought," Halt said, mildly irritated. "I hadn't been thinking we'd be dealing with a buffoon."

"Apparently," Gilan replied, rolling his eyes as they made their way up the stairs and into the castle. They glanced around and saw a servant, and had her lead them up to the baron's sat waiting for over thirty minutes before the Baron entered the room, dressed. When he saw the seven of them sitting there, he looked startled they were still there for a moment before scowling.

"Fine, very well, if you insist," the baron grumbled. "You can come in." As all seven of them stood, he glared at them angrily. "Only two allowed!"

"Take Robin and see how she deals with it," Halt breathed in Will's ear, and Will nodded. He exchanged a look with his apprentice, and together the two of them followed the Baron into his office. The Baron sat in an overlarge arm-chair on the opposite side of the desk, but even though it was so big his sides still overflowed it. On their side of the desk were two scrawny, very uncomfortable looking straight backed chairs.

"Sit," the baron said irritably. When Will and Robin hesitated, he yelled. "SIT NOW." Will watched him levelly, an noticed with approval Robin wasn't cowed by the man yelling. Instead, she looked bored and rearanged her knives. She glanced at one of the chairs.

"May I?" she asked, as though the Baron hadn't spoken. The man's face flushed angrily.

"YES, SIT," he yelled at her.

"Thankyou," she said, sitting and arranging her cloak around her. "But if you wouldn't mind, I'm not hard of hearing, so would you take the volume down a notch?" Will sat in the other chair, leaning back, preparing to observe how his apprentice dealt with the matter. She looked at Will for a moment, realized what he was doing, and nodded subtly.

"What do you want?" the baron said, still loudly but not quite a yell. Robin looked at him for a long moment, then sat back in her chair, folding her hands over her lap.

"I would like to talk to you about your taxes," she said, not so soft as to be a whisper but quieter than normal volume.

"What about them?" the baron growled. "Should I raise them? They're pitifully low, aren't they? Duncan should raise them. Raise the bloody things! Make these fools in the kingdom work!" Both Robin and Will noticed the disrespect he used when referring to the King, calling him by his name.

"King Duncan," Robin corrected him, some ice in her voice. "believes that he nor his barons should be made rich off the money the people work hard for. Now, how much are you requiring the people give you?"

"Ten gold pieces per living person," the baron snapped. "Plus 20% of the income from the inns." Will relaxed; that wasn't too high.

"How often?" Robin asked. Will realized perhaps he should have told her taxes are named by an annual amount, but then saw the baron's expression and thought perhaps this wasn't the case.

"Every month," the baron growled. Will breathed in sharply; that was 11x as much as he was supposed to collect. No wonder the people were going poor!

"That's a problem," Robin replied, leaning forwards. "I'd suggest bringing that down to an annual amount."

"I don't need suggestions from little girls."

"But you do need them from a Ranger," Robin said. Though she didn't raise her voice, the cold seething fury in her voice was clear.

"You aren't a Ranger," he snorted. "Little girls aren't Rangers, dear." Before the Baron could blink, a big saxe-knife was burried three inches deep in the wood of his desk, right between his two fingers, trembling, Robin's hand around the hilt.

"Go on," she replied coldly. "Test if I'm a Ranger. Make me mad again. If I'm not one, perhaps I'll miss your great big head." Will sat straighter, prepared to restrain his apprentice if things got messy.

"You should get out," the Baron said, eyes fixed on the leather bound hilt, still between his fingers. "I am not altering my taxes."

"Then remember my name," Robin said coldly. "I am Robin Hood. That is the last name you will utter before being behind bars or having an arrow through your thick skull." Robin stood abruptly, shoving the chair back about a meter. "You were warned." Will stood silently and ghosted after his apprentice out the door, sighing. He would have to do something about her temper... and her lack of diplomacy. She had just made this whole trip much longer.

"Come on," Will said, gesturing Halt, Gilan, Mauch, Alan and Little John up from their seats. "Looks like we have a long week ahead of us." Together, they found their way out of the castle, heading to an inn for the night. "I have a very strong headed apprentice."


	22. Campout

**Hey guys (I know these Authors Notes are nasty little habits, but I keep having things to say!)!**

**So, for those of you who don't know, there's this contest called Nano-Wrimo. The goal is to basically write a novel in a month, and then you get a little award and everything and you can go back through and edit it and fill out forms online and stuff and they'll actually send you a copy of your book! I'm doing it this year, and I think it would be really fun if you guys (as fellow writers) did it too! **

**Then maybe we could make a website to post ours and have each other read them and tell each other what we think and give people pointers.**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

* * *

><p>Robin sat with her knees folded under her, her cloak around her, striking flint and steel angrily and starting lots of little fires in the leaves around her but none seeming to land in their fire pit. All the while, she was muttering something along the lines of "Sexist Pig" under her breath and several worse insults at the Baron. Finally, with an angry yell, she picked up some burning leaves to her right and threw them into the fire ring, ignoring the sparks that burned her hand.<p>

The fire caught, and she stormed to her feet, pacing back and forth. Will watched her cautiously, afraid she might start yelling. Instead, she just threw her saxe knife with all her force through a little fork in a tree and slammed it into a log some 20 meters away. Will walked slowly to get her knife for her, glancing over his shoulder cautiously. He pulled the knife from the log and handed it back to Robin, and his hand came away bloody; the hilt was crimson with Robin's blood from burns and steel.

"I am a Ranger," she told him forcefully. "My gender has nothing to do with it. I'm as much a Ranger as any other apprentice, aren't I?" At the end of her statement, she sounded almost pleading.

"Of course you are," Will told her, patting her shoulder.

"I don't want to work with that- that PIG- diplomatically. Let's just steal all his money and give it to the poor!" she said angrily, wiping something that looked suspiciously like tears from her face.

"We could, but-" Will started, then he stopped. What was actually wrong with that idea? Killing the Baron would result in another replacement, and there was no guarantee the next would be any better. Trying to imprison him wouldn't work well, either; they'd need the king to judge him, and with all the waiting that would go on there was a good chance he would escape. And, naturally, leaving him there was totally unnacceptable. For a moment, he considered asking Evanlyn to judge a trial; but by the time they got to Araluen she would probably have had her baby and she would be in no condition.

"But?" Robin prompted, her eyebrows rising rebelliously.

"It wouldn't be a lasting fix," Will said, failing to come up with another excuse.

"Alright, so what would be?" Robin said, crossing her arms.

"Erm..." Will was at a loss.

"And at least we would help out the poor while we come up with a plan," Robin pointed out, rebellion thick in her tone.

"You should really discipline your apprentice," Halt said, materializing out of the trees. "She's too fast acting. Alot like Evanlyn, actually. Now, try and turn an Evanlyn into an Alyss." Halt started laughing. "Good luck with that one!"

"Are you suggesting the Princess Royal needs to change her ways, and that it's bad to be like her?" Robin said, drawing herself up to he'm suggesting that you both act without thinking," Halt replied tartly. "For her, it's fine- she has advisers to stop rash decisions. For YOU, Miss Ranger, you only have yourself. So act like it."

For a moment, Will was dreadfully afraid Robin might throw her knife at Halt's head. But instead, she just glared furiously at him. Her saxe knife glinted angrily in her hand, and then she spun on her heel and melted into the trees.

Will sighed and slumped down to sit against a tree, Halt rolling his eyes. "Are you sure she was a wise choice of apprentice?" he asked, watching the spot in the trees where the girl had vanished.

"Possitive," Will said, stretching. "Did you see her marksmanship with that knife throw? Or vanishing into the trees? She has the skills. Now, we just need the temper. But I for one think she has an understandable temper, considering she was just insulted like that. She seems to be sortof sensitive about the whole... treating sexes differently. Probably why she hid as a boy; to avoid the judgement that goes with a girl traveling on her own."

"Exactly," came Robin's cold voice behind them. Halt spun, and saw the girl leaning on her bow hardly five meters away, smirking. "By the way, Rangers, you two would be dead if I was an enemy. Can hardly say I'm a bad choice at a Ranger when I can sneak up on the famous Halt." Her entire body was stiff with anger; she'd obviously heard the whole thing. But Will saw twinkling in her eyes, like a barely suppressed smile.

"I didn't say you were," Halt sniffed indignanly. "I was just asking if he was sure." At this, Robin laughed loudly and rolled her eyes.

"Nice cover," she said, a smirk on her face but a genuine smile in her eyes.

"So why are you in such a bad mood?" Halt demanded, turning back to sit comfortably and making Robin walk around to face him. She did, and sat on the opposite side of the fire she had gotten going.

"I'm not in a bad mood," she said indignantly, crossing her arms.

\\Yes, yes you are," Will joined in. It dawned on him that his apprentice did seem touchy; even for having her gender insulted.

"No, I am not," she said angrily, flinging her hands up. Will then saw that perhaps the blood on her knife hilt hadn't come from her hands; they weren't bleeding at all. But on her side, a flower of blood was staining her vest.

"Perhaps your side is bothering you?" Will suggested pointedly, giving a pointed glance to the spot where she'd been stabbed. She looked down, and seemed to realize for the first time she was bleeding.

"Huh, look at that. Probably broke the stitches," she said. "It had been hurting but I hadn't wanted to pay attention to it..." she mumbled, fumbling through her first aid kit and then rolling her tunic up to the bottom of her rib cage and poking the little knife wound. Her fingers came away red, and then she stitched it promptly back together without even sanitizing the needle.

"That's not smart," Will warned. "You'll get an infection."

"Yeah yeah yeah," Robin grumbled, shoving the remaining thread and needle in her pouch again.

Just as she was rolling her tunic back down, Little John, Alan, Gilan and Mauch walked back into camp with a large buck tied around a pole they carried between them. Max and Ebony milled excitedly around their ankles, enticing several complaints from Mauch as they got under his feet and nearly made him trip.

They put the deer down, and flopped on their rumps.

"So, what's the game plan?" Gilan said, rubbing his hands together over the fire.

"We're going to do some robbing," Will said, before Halt could answer. He made eyecontact with his apprentice, then continued. "And we're going to give the profit to the poor."

"Sounds fun," Little John said, pulling out a large knife and skinning up the deer. "When do we start?"

Robin's eyes sparkled as she took control of her plan. "Tomorrow at dawn."


	23. Plan hatching

**Review because I love you!**

* * *

><p>Will sat back on a log, watching Mauch and Robin crouch low over Little John's hastily drawn map of the immediate area around the castle, and a schedule for the next week of when nobles would be coming in and out of the area that Alan-a-dale "just happened" to have.<p>

The air was beginning to turn chill with autumn and half the leaves now littered the ground around them, making a crisp carpet of red and brown across the forest floor. The sky he could see through the remaining leaves was a bright, clear blue with shafts of sunlight cutting through them and turning the forest into a show of golden light and bright leaves. The fire they had going for a constant supply of coffee spat sparks into the air, glowing fiercely in the shadow of a tree.

Will's mind turned to other things from there; this journey was supposed to take a very short period of time, to teach the apprentices. But his apprentice had already blown the prospect of a nice, clean job... he sighed inaudibly as he watched Robin push her hair out of her face, which was already showing the black it had once been at the roots. She glanced up and saw him watching her, and waved him over.

He stood and brushed the leaves off his backside, stepping around the fire pit and sliding to his knees between Robin and Mauch, peering down at the map and Alan's list.

"So, judging by this," Robin began, jabbing a finger at the list. "There should be a noble coming down the main northern road at around dawn tomorrow, attempting to avoid thieves."

Will looked at the list, then the map, impressed. He could immediately see what had led her to this conclusion: the name of the noble was hastily written on the list, _Isabella of Retindale._Redindale was a small village up north a ways, not even marked on the map. It would be inferable, then, she'd be coming down the north road, and probably around dawn because most thieves stop hunting by then, and the morning thieves aren't up and running.

"How did you know Retindale's to the north? Why not east or south?" Will asked, looking at his apprentice.

"My father died in a battle there," she responded, her voice crisp. Will could tell he'd touched a sensitive spot, and didn't push further.

"Right, good work," he told the two apprentices, clapping them on their shoulders, and standing. His knees popped in protest, and he grumbled inwardly: Maybe he WAS getting like Halt. He was only in his twenties, and already his knees were bothering him... he stretched, and glanced up at the sky.

The bright blue sky was beginning to turn pink and purple with a setting sun, stars peeking out of the darker eastern sky. His stomach grumbled in response, and he went and pulled his skillet and a pot from his bags. He grabbed a wineskin and a water skin and his bag of herbs and potatoes before settling himself by the fire, pouring a thin layer of water into the bottom of the skillet and finding some of the raw meat from the deer that the others had brought back earlier, and began making his stew.

He heard excited whispers as Robin, Mauch and Gilan talked animatedly about a plan for attacking the carriage.

"Brilliant!" Gilan said happily, as they finally settled on a tactic. "They won't know what hit 'em!"

As the sky blackened above, and the little pinpricks of stars shone through the leaves, and the fire glowed brighter and sent up showers of sparks as more logs were added, and they crowded around the fire, stretching back and smelling the cooking meat (which Will added potatoes and herbs to as the meat crisped, dashing in a healthy amount of water and red wine) and drinking their coffee.

As the moon rose high above them, turning the forest into a ghostly silver-blue shade, the stew finished cooking and they ate until their belts were uncomfortably tight and had to be loosened a few notches. Coffee was drained, and the fire grew low, allowing the cool autumn breeze to brush through their hair, lulling them into a peaceful sleep.


	24. An Attack

**Alright, my lovely ducklings! I know it has been very, very long, but I decided I was giong to go back through and update one of my top stories... the Albus Potter and the Dark Lord's Heir, Blood on Olympus, Fifth to Charm and Last to Fall, or Little Red Robin Hood. So I looked at the view count and reviews and stuff, and I've actually had lots of people asking me about this one lately, so I decided to go back and do this one. **

**I ended up reading all the chapters because the time I wrote this was when I broke my arm and was basically on prescription pain killers 24/7, and had NO clue what I had written. And, I got rehooked on the idea, so I think I'm going to try to finish this one. The only problem is I have absolutely no clue where I had been planning on going with this, and because I haven't updated in two years I lost my plot outline.**

**I have, however, improved since then. I am not going to go back through and edit all those chapters to make sure all the spelling and weird little glitches are under control, because... ya know... whatever. That's like, 30 thousand words of editing. How about no.**

**I think I have figured out where I'm gonna go with this, though, so please enjoy the most requested update!**

Will was the first one up that morning. The sun was just starting to peak over the horizon and paint the sky, and he prodded the fire to bring it back to life. He placed a pot of water over the flames to boil to make coffee later, and then sat back down, staring into the flames. He used these moments of calm and silence to sit back and think, wondering if he was really doing the right thing.

Robin had only been his apprentice for two weeks now, and she was a girl, and she had lied to him. Was he right about keeping her on as his apprentice? The girl had talents, he had to admit. She wasn't as good at moving unseen as he had been when Halt recruited him, nor was she as even tempered. But she was quiet on her feet, and had a gift for tracking that had taken him months to acquire. But she would never have the strength in her upper body that he had, so long bows would always be a challenge for her. And he wasn't sure how he would manage to curb her temper if she didn't try to curb it on her own.

And even if he was right about keeping her on as her apprentice, which he knew Alyss would approve of, was he right about letter her take on some control in this situation? After only two weeks, Halt was letting him wash his dishes, not letting him handle a diplomatic relationship with a Baron. Did Will even really know how to train an apprentice?

Robin stirred in her sleep, dragging his gaze over to her. Her side was bleeding again, but he didn't want to wake her up for it. It wasn't bleeding badly, anyway. As he studied her face, some of his fears quieted.

She was strong, and she was talented, and she had already proven she was a quick learner. She was just afraid, and he understood that. She was afraid that she wasn't good enough, she was afraid that she wasn't going to get to stay a Ranger, she was afraid that everyone would think she was weak. She was afraid_. _No, she was _terrified. _

He started to feel some sympathy for the girl. No, he was going to keep her on as his apprentice. It was about time that a girl joined the corps, and there was no reason it couldn't be Robin. And her plan for the moment was fine, so he didn't see why they shouldn't use it. If she started to get too crazy, then he could always take over, or he could have Halt or Gilan take over.

Everything was going to be okay.

She stirred again, and then rubbed at her eyes. The hiss of steam reached his ears and he looked back at the pot of water over the fire and saw that it was boiling. He rose and moved to the saddle bags, gathering clean mugs, coffee beans and honey.

By the time he had it all in hand and returned to the fire, Robin was sitting upright with her cloak wrapped around her shoulders. Halt was stretching, his old bones popping in his shoulder sockets.

Halt was not nearly as willing to let people wake up of their own accord as Will had been.

"Wake up, you sleeping beauties," he said, throwing the bag he had been using as a pillow at Gilan's face. Gilan snorted, waking up suddenly and rolling backwards into Little John. He promptly bounced off of Little John, who groaned and threw his arm out, accidentally smacking Mauch in the face. Mauch squealed and jumped, kicking Alan-a-Dale in the side, who mumbled and rolled over, out of Mauch's reach.

"Four for one," Will said, "Not bad."

"You will never obtain these skills," Halt said, his face completely still and serious.

"Oh, yeah," Robin chipped in. "Mad skills." Halt gave her a dirty look, then noticed that Will was dealing out coffee and lightened up.

"What time is it?" Alan grumbled, hugging onto his instrument case that he had been sleeping on but moments before. "Wakin' us up at the crack of dawn, you are..."

"Actually the crack of dawn was about forty minutes ago," Will said, passing Halt a mug off coffee with honey in it.

"Oh crap, really?" Robin said, jerking forward a little bit. "But we're supposed to be at that road in, like, an hour! And the road is a half hour away!"

"Yes, I know," Will said calmly. "Which gives us a half hour to drink some coffee, saddle our horses and start riding, doesn't it? Relax, Little Red Robin Hood."

As it turned out, Robin's need to rush was severely misplaced. Because they had no idea when the carriage was supposed to go by, only that it was supposed to go by today, they wanted to get there as early as the carriage could possibly go by... But it turned out that the carriage didn't roll by until three hours past noon.

And that wait was perhaps the most boring of Robin's very short life.

God.

So boring.

Just when she was starting to wonder if the carriage was going to come by at all, the distant clack of wheels rolling on an uneven road reached her ears. The others, who were about fifty meters up the road closer to the carriage than she was, had definitely heard it by now. She got to her feet and staggered out of the tree line then, waiting in the middle of the road for the carriage to come into view.

She knew her role, and she was prepared to play it well. She hoped everyone else was ready to do the same, and that no last minute morals would get in the way.

When the carriage finally appeared, there was no doubt in her mind that it was the carriage of a wealthy noblewoman. It was gilded with gold and shone white, and was pulled by four white horses. She could see six guards around it, two of them on horses to the front of the carriage and two on either side. There might be another two behind it, she didn't know. She didn't have time to look, either; she had to start acting, and start acting now.

Her flaming red cloak made her obvious in the middle of the road, and she started staggering towards the carriage. She held her side, the blood from the wound that she had reopened in her sleep was seeping through her fingers. She reached out, showing the blood on her hand to the soldiers, and staggered forward a few more steps. When the carriage was only ten meters away and even with the men hiding in the trees, she fell to her knees. Her bloody hand dug into the dirt on the road and her other hand wrapped around her, holding her side.

The horses of the carriage reared up, and the two guards in front called for a halt.

"What is it?!" an angry voice from within the carriage growled. A woman in her mid-thirties poked her head out the side, a huge frown wrinkling her already distasteful forehead and making her look like a young witch. "Why is there a girl in the road?!"

"She appears to me hurt, mam," the soldier on the right horse said in a heavy accent that was completely unfamiliar to Robin. Robin took the opportunity to cough for emphasis, and one of the soldiers on foot walked towards her. She reached a shaking, bloody hand out for him, staring up at him through her poorly bleached hair.

"Help... please," Robin said, in her best fake shaky voice. She really wasn't shaky at all and felt perfectly fine, but it didn't hurt to play up her injury.

The man knelt in front of her, and she saw in his eyes a sort of sympathy that gave her a twinge of guilt.

The woman's next words squashed any sense of guilt that Robin might have had. "Well, move her out of the way, then! We've got places to be, people to see!"

"But, mam," the soldier kneeling in front of her said in the same thick accent as the other soldier. "She is bleeding very much, and she looks very young. What happened to you, girl?"

"Move her ASIDE, and let us _go!_" the woman yelled. After a moment's hesitation, the soldier moved to get Robin out of the way.

That was when the first arrow went flying through the air.

**Pwease pweeeeease review to tell me if you are still interested or not. :3**


	25. Decissions

**Review to let me know if you are still reading, please!**

In general, Will was a very calm person. He liked his coffee, he liked his bow, he liked a quiet ride with his horse. He enjoyed banter and music, but then, of course, there were a few things that had a way of pissing him off.

And one of them was ordering a young, bleeding girl to be dragged out of the road so that way a noblewoman _wouldn't be late._

When he let that arrow fly, he wasn't intending to kill anyone, though. No, he wasn't going to murder pointlessly. He especially wasn't going to murder the poor men who had to work for this awful woman just to put bread on the table. That was why he had removed the arrowheads from 18 of his 24 arrows, replacing them with blunt heads.

When that arrow flew, it crashed into the side of the helmet of the soldier closest to Robin. The clang of metal rang through the air and the soldier fell over, unconscious.

Robin flinched and scooted away from him, still on the ground. She still looked boyish with her short hair, but without the padding around her midsection he found himself wondering just how she had convinced him so easily. His momentary lapse resulted in Halt smacking him upside the head, and the soldiers had an opportunity to scramble into formation.

And Robin was gone.

She had disappeared completely from that spot in the road, and the soldiers couldn't seem to figure out where she had gone, much less who had fired the arrow.

Two more arrows flew, knocking the men on the horses unconscious. They fell to the ground with a thud that made even Halt wince, and one of the remaining guards yelped in a distinctively not masculine way.

A yowl emanated from the carriage, and Will saw a flash of a red cloak through the window. The door popped open, and the noblewoman went flying out of the carriage. She landed in a very undignified heap on the ground, and she was shouting obscenities that no proper woman ought to know.

"Yeah? Well you're a bigger one, m'lady! Hogging all this gold for yerself!" Robin hollered, waving a small trunk of gold. She was using a fake accent that really was quite dreadful, and Will had absolutely no clue why she was doing such a thing. "There's poor people starvin' round abouts here, ya know and it really just isn't very kind."

The woman reached for her ankle and drew a knife, waving it about in front of Robin as though she was going to try to stab him. Although the woman had obviously been trained, she had been trained in a noble court where she had obviously been taught that certain manners applied, and SURPRISE, when you're getting mugged, no one really follows the rules.

Especially rules like one-on-one fighting.

Little John lumbered out of the tree line then and hugged the woman from behind, immobilizing her. She started squealing and Robin jumped down, waving her own throwing knife in the woman's face.

"Ya didn't think I was alone, did you?"

"A little girl like you?!" the woman hissed, struggling against Little John's size. "Of course you weren't! No mere girl is going to take on armed knights and a trained lady of the court!"

"Really?" Robin said. Will felt despair settle in his stomach as he saw a glint of anger in Robin's eyes, and knew she was probably about to do something rash. "Well, it's a good thing I'm no mere girl. When you wake up, please tell his Lord Baron-ness that Robin Hood sent you."

"When I wake -?" the woman started, but then Robin brought the hilt of her throwing knife down hard on the woman's head. She went limp in Little John's arms and he dropped her to the ground.

"That wasn't particularly friendly, Alis," Little John said, frowning down at her. "Your family wouldn't be approving."

"Well, it's a good thing I haven't got one then, isn't it?" Robin replied, sheathing her knife. "But we've got the gold now, so we've got a start."

Will melted out of the tree line. "We really have got to work on your temper." He was pretty furious with his apprentice right then, but in order to make his point he kept his voice calm. "Injuring a noblewoman is not good for us trying to get you a spot in the Corps. You do realize that King Duncan has to approve this, right? If he hears awful things about your behavior, you will not be a Ranger, girl or not."

Robin looked down at her shoes, blushing furiously. "Sorry," she said.

"If I might lend my observation," Alan-a-Dale said, leaning against the carriage. "It seems she is very sensitive about her gender."

"It's not that it's my gender! It's just that people are such damn sexist pi-" Robin started up with fire in her eyes.

"Enough," Halt said, holding his hand up to silence Robin mid-word. "Alan is right. You are far to sensitive. You are the first Ranger girl, but only if you keep your temper, and therefore you are bound to face some skepticism. If you cannot hold your own when people call you a girl, then perhaps they should call you a boy."

Robin looked up, taken aback. She clearly wasn't entirely following Halt's logic, but Will saw it immediately. "Yeah," Will nodded. "You didn't have these temper problems when everyone thought you were a boy. And it would help with a disguise, if nothing else."

"But..." Robin began, but then she trailed off. She didn't have any argument against what they were saying, but she certainly didn't like it.

"If word keeps getting back to the baron of a girl stopping carriages, he's going to remember you, and he will connect you with the Rangers," Gilan added. "And while Duncan most definitely won't care what the Baron thinks, he will care what all the other nobles have to say. If all the nobles hate you because of what this Baron says, then you're screwed."

"I agree," Mauch offered, peaking out from behind one of the white horses pulling the carriage.

"Me too," Little John said, looking down at Robin. "You always had your dad's fire, but you need to keep it on the down-low. It's what's safest for you."

"Fine," Robin said, stubbing her toes against a rock peeking out of the soil. "I'll go back to dressing like a boy."

"Alright," Will said, nodding. "Once you have disguised yourself again, we will go deliver the gold."

"OK," Robin said, perking up a little bit at the prospect of handing out the stolen gold to the poor. "I'll go get ready, but could someone maybe possibly go through the carriage to see if there was anything I missed?"

"I will," Mauch volunteered immediately, raising his hand as though he was a school boy in class. He scampered into the carriage and disappeared. Robin turned on her heel and disappeared into the trees, and Will heard the neigh of Nudge as Robin left.

"Your apprentice is getting to be a handful," Halt said, poking the noblewoman's foot with his boot.

"I bet I could have trained her better," Gilan commented, smirking.

"Do you actually want her?" Will asked, arching his eyebrows at Gilan. Gilan paused, pursing his lips.

"I don't see why not," Gilan replied. "Lots of people said a Ranger couldn't use a sword, didn't they? Well, look at me now. And lots of people said a girl couldn't be a Ranger, didn't they?"

"You really want to be the one with that temper on your hands?" Will asked, somewhat incredulous. He wasn't going to give up on his apprentice, of course. His own stubbornness was taken over. But if he had had a glimpse that this was what he was getting into, he might have declined that riding companion he ran into back on Lafway feif.

He realized that he didn't actually know a lot about his apprentice. Basically everything that the fabricated Sandy had told him would have been a lie, and he knew precious little about Alis. But he supposed that Robin was someone entirely different than those two people she had shown him, and he wasn't sure just what he was getting into with this girl.


	26. Sorry I was disappointing you guys

**Oh...**

**I guess people aren't still reading. :/**

**I was super psyched to continue this story, I kinda thought it was the best one I had written on here so far... But I guess other people didn't agree with me, because no one has reviewed or anything...**

**Oh. Okay.**

**That's alright. I guess I'll just go back to writing my Hunger Games one, because people actually care about that one... I'm kinda bummed that no one seems to like this story anymore, though. Did I do something wrong?**

**Maybe the Ranger's Apprentice fandom just died too much or something...? I don't know.**

**Oh well. **

**Sorry to disappoint you guys... **


	27. Two Little Coins

**Alright, I got seven reviews... after I said I wasn't going to write any more because no one was reviewing...**

**I will continue, but I am not sitting here just writing for writing's sake, I'm writing because I have a story to tell. And in order to tell a story, there are two parties involved: the speaker, and the listeners. If no one's listening, then I'm basically just doing it to hear myself talk, which isn't what I'm doing.**

**I'm not going to say that I need five reviews or whatever before I continue, like some authors do. But I do want one.**

**I want one to know someone is still reading, at a minimum. Just to know I'm not talking to myself. I would absolutely love more than one, that would make me so very happy, but if I'm just talking to myself I will not update because there is no point. Does that make sense?**

**So from here on out, I will not post a new chapter until I get at least one review on it. Just SOMETHING from SOMEONE.**

**Alright?**

Will didn't keep that mind set for long, though. Robin's actions over the next hour and a half would prove to him in his mind that he had made the right decision.

When she returned, the guards and noblewoman were still unconscious. Will was stunned; she had turned into someone completely different. He had been berating himself for thinking she could ever be a boy, but seeing her now made him realize why he had been fooled so easily.

It was as though he was looking at a male relative of Robin rather than Robin herself, and he wasn't entirely sure how it had happened. Her hair was messier now, and a few streaks of dirt went across her face to disguise the girlishly perfect skin. Her body was concealed again, probably with the same thick padding that had saved her life a few days ago, and her posture was different. He wasn't sure if it was a subconscious thing due to her being disguised as a boy, or if she was a far better actor than he had thought, but her shoulders hunched in a less-girlish way, her head was back against her neck to give her less of a defined, heart-shaped face and an extra swipe of dirt on her forehead disguised feminine eyebrows.

She was still by no means manly, but he never would have thought her a girl unless he knew otherwise.

She was quiet and subdued when she appeared through the trees, not quite melting as a full ranger melted but still slinking through the trees in a way that made her more difficult to see than any mere farmer in a bright red cloak would appear.

"How far of a walk was the village?" she asked. Her voice was still high and clear and feminine, but he remembered her speaking in a lower tone when she had been disguised before and he knew she would be able to do it again. "Twenty minutes, was it?"

"Only ten minutes if we ride," Little John said. Will heard a disconcerted snort from one of the horses concealed in the trees, who was probably not too happy at the prospect of having Little John atop his back once more. Will covered a flash of a grin behind his hand, which everyone but Gilan missed, who smirked as well.

Robin whistled, and the others did whatever they did to beckon their own creatures. Will patted Tug on his neck while the dog milled around his ankles, snorting at Max every now and again. He whispered into Tug's ear and then swung up onto his back, situating himself in the familiar saddle.

As they rode, Will kept the box of gold in his lap, which clanked softly whenever he shifted beneath it. He rode near the back while Little John rode in the front with Halt. Will shucked his Ranger's cloak, knowing it would do them no good to be recognized as rangers, and the others followed suit. Robin, who already had her red cloak on over her Ranger's cloak (to give her more bulk, Will assumed), didn't bother to take it out from underneath her red cloak.

In the short ride to the village, they stretched out in a straggling line along the road, with Will ending up riding beside Robin in the back of the column.

"You know," Will said, seizing hold of this opportunity. "I really don't know much about you. Everything 'Sandy' told me was a lie, wasn't it?"

Robin glanced over at him and had the courtesy to look shame-faced. "Most of it," she said, quiet. "But if I told you the real story, I risked you noticing who I was and all. I thought I was in for sure when we ran into Little John, but he hadn't seen me since I went to live in the Ward so he didn't much know what I looked like now... you might have figured it out, still, if you had a night to think it through."

Will took a moment to mull this over. "Well, then," he began. "Perhaps we should get to know each other better, then?"

She offered him a smile, which let some of her femininity show through. "That could work."

"Alright, Robin Hood," Will said. "Have you ever actually hunted before?"

"No," she answered quickly. "Never. I enjoy spending time with animals, not killing them. I eat meat, of course, I am not so picky as to turn down whatever food I was offered, but the act of killing an animal makes me uncomfortable. I know it's supposed to be a part of life and all, and that's fine, I just don't... I don't really want to take part in it."

Will of course could fill in the blanks with what she said, and he found himself understanding more of what she didn't say than he would have if she had tried to explain herself. She spent so much time with them alone in the woods, drawing them, that they really became her companionship, her friends almost.

He knew how lonely it could be to be a Ward.

"Then where did you learn to shoot?" he asked. "It seemed like you had shot before, even if you weren't practiced."

"I didn't." She shook her head. "Whenever I was grounded for going out into the woods, I would sit in my room and I would look out my window. Out my window was where the archers practiced, so when I was very bored I had no option aside from drawing them, unless I wanted to draw something from my imagination or the bricks of my room, so I drew them a lot. I studied them, their movements, their positions... for years, really. I suppose studying archers for years, and watching them until it's ingrained in your mind equates to your first archery lesson or two."

He was surprised at how open she was being, how very honest.

"If you're to ask about all the Ranger things, then I should explain my movements? I can move quietly because I spent years in my childhood sneaking up on animals to draw them, because trees and other still things got ever so boring, and you didn't see much of deer or rabbits in the castle, so I didn't know what they looked like well enough to draw them. So I had to be very still, and very quiet. It was one of those trips that I found Max...

"And Max taught me a lot, too. He would stalk animals and jump out at them, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out how he moved so silently through the trees. It turns out, it's because he was barefoot. When you're barefoot your feet are more flexible and you don't need to break sticks or anything when you move. It was a good trick to have under my belt."

"Alright," Will said, nodding. It made more sense when she put those reasons behind it, although he realized he ought to have been able to be certain of both without her telling him. "A more pressing question: how did you trick us so easily?"

"People see what they expect to," Robin replied. She looked at him with those peculiar eyes and he saw a flash of the fiery girl he knew in her eyes. "Which isn't always what was in front of them. You had no reason to suspect different of me, did you, Ranger?"

"I suppose," Will replied. He felt somewhat abashed, because it was his job to suspect different of people and to see what others don't. He had just never thought that some random boy they ran into would be a girl, although you would have thought that meeting the Princess would have changed his mind... "What about the horse? He was remarkably well trained, you know."

"Oh," she said, glancing back at her gelding. "I didn't train him, he was Joshua's. I stole him because I needed a ride if I was ever going to make it out of that fief, and preferably a scary escort if I was going to avoid ending up dead in a ditch somewhere.

"He was trained for farm life, to pull a heavy plow, to answer to a whistle when he was on the other side of a field, to tolerate sheep dogs, and so forth."

"I see," Will said. Everything that had been so impressive about her collectively dissolved under close inspection, and he was struck by how small, delicate and very human she seemed, even in her boy costume. All she really was, was a girl who wanted to draw.

Of course, that wasn't entirely true. Over the next hour, he came to realize that she never would have been as happy as she thought as an artist. She would have been empty, unfulfilled, and a little bit sad.

They didn't talk much else, then. Will knew he had more questions, but none seemed to bubble up to the surface of his mind, so instead they made small talk about what the fief back home was like in the spring time, or what she thought of the Baron.

The farm houses came into view eventually, but they didn't stop there. The farmers were not the ones who were suffering the most right now; the farmers gave up a large portion of their income in taxes, yes, but they kept a portion of their food and didn't go hungry. The ones they worried about were in the poorer parts of town, who worked as shop keepers or blacksmiths, those who had no personal food source and only had money, that the Baron was sucking away bit by bit.

They made it to a part of town where the cobbles were broken and had slime in the cracks, and where the streets stank of raw sewage. Some of the roofs were lopsided and bending under the weight of water rot and the few children playing in the streets were skinny and covered in dirt. Most of them weren't playing, though. They were inside their houses, staring out at the motley assortment of folks in nicer clothes riding horses down their street.

The folks in nicer clothes never came to this part of town.

Not for anything good, anyway.

Robin got off of Nudge and reached up to Will. Will jumped off of Tug with the case in his lap and he opened it carefully, so that none of the onlookers would see what was inside. Robin reached in and removed ten coins, carefully counted, and dropped eight into her pocket. She looked around, faltering, then set out to the first residence in this part of town.

When she knocked, a woman answered. The woman was old with lack of sleep and poverty, not with years, but the lines creased her face all the same. She was bent as though the weight of the world had finally brought her shoulders down and a sort of sadness was in her eyes, as well as suspicion. A small child clung to her skirts who looked painfully thin, although Will's trained eyes knew that the child was getting more to eat than the woman was.

"We haven't got any money for taxes, they aren't due for another two weeks! Get yer money lovin' hands off my doorstep," the woman said, angry and distrusting of the person who seemed like a boy in a rich man's cloak, as nicely dyed as it was.

"I am not here for taxes," Robin said, somewhat taken aback at the woman's reaction. The woman squinted at Robin, suddenly uncertain.

"What are you here for? Ya can't arrest me, I paid my taxes, I'm a law abiding citizen. I'm a mother, too..." the woman trailed off, looking unhappily at the men on the street.

"I am not here to arrest you, Miss..." Robin trailed off, inviting the woman to share her name.

"I'd rather not say if I ain't being arrested," the woman said.

"I am here to help," Robin said, her voice smooth, low and calm. "The man in that castle is robbing you. I am Robin Hood, and I have robbed him back. I want you to have some of your money back. I know it isn't much, but I hope more will follow." Robin reached for the woman's hand and placed two gold coins in her palm.

The woman paused, her face not entirely sure what expression it wanted to take on. When she decided, she looked up at Robin with nothing but pure gratitude on her face. She hugged the child in her skirts closer to her.

"Thank you, Robin 'Ood. Bless you," the woman said. Tears were in her eyes. Robin might not know just how much the gold coins were worth, but Will knew that in this part of town you were lucky to make one of those coins in a week, and the family would be able to survive for a month off of those coins. It really threw into perspective just how much the Baron was taking from them by trying to get ten coins out of them every month, when they made four or five on average.

The woman whispered to her child, and Will, being the closest, heard what she said. "Darling, Mama's going to buy you those new shoes you wanted... Yes, they will be a size big so you can grow into them..." Will glanced down at the child's feet, and saw that they were completely bare and caked in mud. The child was wearing completely thread-worn Sunday clothes that ended several inches above his ankles, and mud said that he had been wearing them for days.

"Thank you very much," the woman said, and closed the door behind her. Robin turned and looked back at the others, a huge smile on her face.

That was when Will realized that she wouldn't have been happy as just an artist, and he realized she really was supposed to be a Ranger.

She was supposed to make a difference.


	28. A Close Call

**OK, guys, so the thing is I have four possible endings to work towards and I don't have to decide which one I'm going for until the last few chapters. So once I get closer, I'm going to have you vote on ending one, ending two, ending three or ending four without knowing what the options are. But be warned, for one of them you will hate me. You will hate me so much.**

**Oh gods.**

**SO much.**

**On a different one, you will hate me marginally less. **

**On yet another one, you will hate me somewhere between so much and marginally less. Well, really, I suppose it depends on who your favorite character is (mwahahahaa).**

**The last one won't make you hate me, but it's a little cheesy. It'll be a little longer, too.**

**I suppose there's actually a fifth option, that I publish all four endings and let you guys choose your favorite, kind of like Clue. But I don't know if I want to be that nice... it depends on you guys, I guess.**

* * *

><p>They got through the entire street, and Will counted how many coins they had: Three hundred and thirty-five, enough to give to 167 house holds and keep one coin for themselves, to stock up on more food.<p>

The street and the two streets beside it were probably the poorest, although there was another ghetto on the other side of town that they would never have enough coins to get through and so they just dealt in that part of town. When they ran out of coins half way down the third street, Robin looked just slightly crushed to not have had enough for every family to get enough coins.

"Maybe we should have just given them one, maybe -" Robin said, but Halt cut her off.

"No, Robin." He shook his head. "One wouldn't have meant as much and we can pick up here with the next round of coins, can't we? We did all we could and this was an awesome start, don't feel upset that it wasn't a god-like start."

Robin still looked somewhat upset.

"I suppose," she conceded, then nodded briskly, "Yeah, you're right. Right. We're fine. It was good."

She still hesitated when she returned to her horse, as though she still wanted to do more but she wasn't sure how. She climbed up on Nudge anyway and they returned back down the street, listening to the happy whispers of families leaking out through their doors and into the street.

"I don't think we can stay in town," Gilan observed. "We'd be recognized and probably arrested."

"Good point," Mauch said, nodding his head a little too vigorously for Will's taste. "We'll need to make a camp."

"Well... if we can't take the bastard down -" Robin began, but Will cut her off.

"Language," Will reminded her, and she just scowled at him.

"- until King Duncan returns, then we might be here a while," Robin continued. "Maybe we should make a more permanent camp?"

"I will send him a letter, asking after his return. We should arrest him around his return so that by the time Duncan is back in the castle, he's had time to unpack and get caught up on the affairs of his kingdom," Halt said, his voice calm and level.

"Sounds like a plan," Little John said, nodding to himself as his horse made small grunting noises with each step.

"We can make a real camp," Robin repeated, as though that sealed the deal.

* * *

><p>And that was what they prepared for that evening before sitting down to a flame-cooked dinner and laughing together, congratulating themselves for a job well done, as they should have been. They didn't know how close they came to being undone that night, which was probably for the best.<p>

Two miles away, high up in a tower sat a very portly man who was also a very angry man, and a very tired man and not an altogether intelligent man, who was about to make a mistake that would ruin the next two years of his life.

The Baron sat at his desk, rifling through reams of paper and making sure all his taxes were in. A soft rain pelted the window and the a crackled in the fire place, but rather than being soothing things as they would have been to most everyone else, they were annoying to him and just made him more frustrated. He threw his ream of papers at the wall as he lost count for the fifth time that evening, finally surrendering to the fact that he could not do basic arithmetic.

He got up from his seat and began stalking back and forth along his office, scowling at the place where the Rangers had been not too long ago. If they hadn't come, he wouldn't be having any of these problems. If they hadn't come, then he wouldn't be second-guessing his taxes. If they hadn't come, he wouldn't be worrying about King Duncan returning. If they hadn't come... Oh, but if.

The door to his study creaked open and a little scribe peeked around the edge of the door at him.

"My lordship, there is a Lady here to see you, says she's been attacked..." the little man began, but the Baron was in no such mood for this. "Says something about a red cloak, she's a bit hysterical... says they took all her money, she does..."

The Baron roared his anger. The Lady was, of course, supposed to be bringing in the most recent set of taxes. And it had been stolen! He had no time to listen to her excuses, all he knew was he was now three hundred and thirty-five coins short, and he had feasts to fund, jails to fill and gallows to multiply.

"I DON'T CARE WHO TOOK IT!" the Baron was beyond furious now. This was enough to push him from his earlier irritation into a blind rage. "JUST FIX IT, FIX IT, FIX IT NOW!"

"Says it was Robin Ho-" the scribe began, but was cut off by the Baron throwing his shoe at where the man's head was. The man closed the door just in time, making the shoe thump against the hard wood and then fall to the floor. The Baron never did hear how the scribe was going to finish that sentence, of course. And so he never connected the attack on the Lady back to the little girl who had been in that very office not very long before.

If he had, his life would have been so much easier because he could have just had the Rangers arrested and tell all the other nobles about it and King Duncan would have had to take care of it for him. But as it was, the next time he would hear about Robin Hood, he'd hear about a young man with a bow and a merry band of thieves.

He'd never think of that dainty little girl with the fiery temper. No, sir; he'd just think of a man, and his passionate desire to see that man hanging in the gallows outside his window.


	29. The Tired Embrace of Silence

The first snow fell across the ground in a white blanket, transforming the wasteland of the barony to a forbidden frozen landscape. The ground was unmarred by animal prints and the air was silent, without even the whispers of animals to give the night a backdrop.

As Robin stared out at the silver-gilded night, she was glad they had finished the permanent camp three days before. They had found a spot in a cleared area where two hills rose up and inbetween it they had layered planks of wood and covered it with a tarp and leaves, which made the two hills blend together into one. A make-shift door that was given away only by a crack in the earth revealed the unfinished interior, with cut wood on the floor to keep the mud away. Three to four inch logs were tied together into several rectangles with a cloth webbing to make cots, and were propped up around the little den. A roughly made shelf set leaned against one "wall" and a wobbly table that Little John had tried very hard to make sat in the middle. They didn't normally eat at the table, though; normally they ate outside, because they couldn't figure out how to put a fireplace into their den without a chimney to give them away.

They generally ate breakfast around the table, with dried meat and bread that they had stored up in the shelves. They also kept some pitchers of clean water on those shelves, and now that it was cold enough outside they started keeping milk. Any personal items they had were under their cots.

Of course, there was the matter of what to do with their horses. The Ranger horses were very well trained, as well as Robin's farm gelding, so they just grazed around freely. Little John and Alan's horses weren't as well trained, so they tied a rope between two trees and slipped their reigns around the rope so that the horses could walk the length of the rope and a few yards in either direction.

Halt said that their make-shift camp would never fool a Ranger, but Robin thought they had done pretty well off of that one coin that they had had. Maybe it was just her untrained eyes, but it was pretty convincing to her. The fresh layer of snow over the whole thing helped with the illusion, too.

They had robbed three more carts, and she was nearly certain that the Baron had heard of them by now. All of the poor folk had been given four coins now, and when Robin went into town the other day she had come across a skinny little boy eating a roll. When he saw her he smiled and waved, showing off a missing front-tooth. It had made her feel warm inside, and she knew she was doing the right thing.

But she wasn't sure if she was doing enough of the right thing. Was stealing from the rich to give to the poor enough? The people were still living under the tyranny of the Baron and she wasn't sure what else she could do to alleviate their suffering. She was quickly coming to realize that money was not the only problem these people faced; disease had stricken them, and their food stores were down. They had sold all their food earlier trying to pay off their taxes, but now they didn't have the food they needed and they couldn't harvest more. A few coins wouldn't do them much good if there was no food left to buy.

What these people needed was for the Baron to be gone. If only King Duncan returned...

Duncan swept between the tents, snow crunching under his boots. He rearranged his cloak on his shoulders, trying to preserve what warmth he had left. He didn't have much; every time he saw a blood splatter in the trodden snow, a little bit more of a chill leaked into his bones. Every so often he would hear a heart-sinking moan from a tent, and he hated to know his people were suffering as they were.

"Excuse me! King Duncan!" a voice said, and he turned to see a squire running up to him. "A message," the boy panted, out of breath. His face was pale but he had roses in his cheeks and a bright red nose, and in his hand was a crumpled letter sealed with bright red wax. Stamped into the wax was an oak-leaf, and Duncan reached out a hand for the letter. "From the Ranger Halt."

Duncan nodded and popped the seal, not minding too much if the boy saw what was written on the letter.

_Duncan,_

_I am writing to you to inform you of rather upsetting news. A Baron has taken advantage of your absence and has raised taxes for his own benefit- to twelve times the rate they should be. _

_I am in the barony with Will, Gilan, and two apprentices; Mauch and Robin Hood. When you return, I would like to speak with you about the latter, but that is not of the up most concern at the moment. Our main concern is the Baron and his unjust actions. _

_As I'm sure you're aware, it would be a simple matter for five Rangers to capture and remove the Baron from the throne – the real matter is what to do with him once we have him. It would be improper to kill him, and yet it would also be improper to keep him locked in a cell for an indefinite period of time without trial. And, as I'm sure you are aware, the only judge that can rule over a Baron's life is the King – who just so happens to be you, and who just so happens to be several hundred miles away._

_In essence, my question is this: when will you plan on returning? We will capture him with this in mind for our time-line, and everything will be arranged accordingly. _

_I hope you are well,_

_Halt._

Duncan sighed and rubbed his forehead as though he thought his fingers could banish the headache that was pounding at his temples, and then dropped his hand. He skimmed the letter a second time, and a third time. Halt had given him more problems to deal with; a corrupt baron, unfair taxes that would have to be returned to the people, and a problem without a name: who was Robin Hood, and what could Halt possibly need to talk with him about? The Rangers had never required the King's approval before, it had just kind of... happened.

He pushed the mention of the apprentice aside, deciding that whatever was wrong with the boy could wait. When WOULD he have the opportunity to return? He didn't want to leave his people to fight without him to give his support, but he knew that in staying he was condemning his people back home to more days in poverty.

He smiled at the boy who had brought him the letter, who was now shivering in the falling snow.

"Thank you," Duncan said, bowing his head ever so slightly in the boy's direction before turning back and continuing in the direction he had originally been heading. His tent appeared in front of him, hardly larger and more grandiose than any of the tents around it; in fact, it was only a few inches taller than the others, which Duncan had requested to accommodate his height. The only real differences between his tent and the surrounding tents was its width, which was to accommodate desks, chairs and beds for when he had to speak with an adviser immediately or write letters.

He swept into his tent and sat down, pulling out a fresh square of parchment, a quill, and some ink. He thought for a moment, wet his quill, and began to write.

_Halt,_

_Winter is fast encroaching and I intend to return for the winter months to see to the affairs of my kingdom on a home-stead. I also intend to bring the majority of my army back with me, leaving a rotation on look-out, but the Eastern Steppes would be near impossible to navigate for a large army._

_I plan on leaving in three weeks time, and I will take on the case of this Baron immediately upon my return. _

_Thank you for the information,_

_Duncan._

He blew lightly on the paper, sanded it to get off the excess ink and insure that it wouldn't smudge, and then he folded it. He lit a candle and stared into its flame for a few minutes, and then dripped the accumulated wax onto the letter to seal it. He pressed his ring into the wax and then sat back, watching the wax grow cloudy as it dried.

After a few moments, he ran his fingers along the seal to ensure that it was completely hardened, and then he got to his feet and stretched. He walked outside of his tent and on the crest of a hill about a hundred paces away, he saw the boy from before talking with a soldier. Duncan tightened his cloak against the cold and started forward, his boots making the snow crunch under foot.

"Excuse me," Duncan said, and the boy looked up from his conversation. "I have a letter to be returned to Ranger Halt."

"Of course, sir," the boy said, and took the letter from Duncan's outstretched hand. The boy bowed and ran off down the other side of the hill, disappearing from sight between the tents.

"My lord," said the soldier that the boy had been talking to. The soldier bowed low, and Duncan felt a smile crack his face.

"No need to bow," Duncan said quietly. "What's your name?"

"It's James, sir," the soldier said.

"Well, Ja-" Duncan started, but suddenly he felt pressure against his right shoulder from behind. He looked down with a frown and saw an arrowhead peaking through his cloak, and he blinked in confusion. Blood started trickling down his chest and he felt the warmth underneath his cloak. A chill set in in his fingers in stark contrast to the warmth in his chest and his knees buckled.

He touched his chest, and his fingers came away crimson. The pain hit him then like a delayed wave, and it took all of his strength not to vomit. His ears started ringing and his vision couldn't seem to focus in on any one thing, and the taste of copper filled his mouth.

"James," Duncan said. "Would you mind getting some medical personnel for me? I think I might need some help." He started falling then and fell to his side so that he didn't hit the arrow. He stared upwards into the face of a shocked soldier. James' mouth was moving, but Duncan couldn't hear what he was saying anymore. He didn't much mind, though, because the silence was welcome...

... The silence helped him sleep.


	30. The Letter

What you really must understand is that the Baron was not a stupid man. After the news of the second robbery reached his ears, he realized that there was going to be a long term problem. And that started to make him scared; he was worried that not only would he lose all his tax money, but that he would be removed from his Barony by King Duncan. The Rangers' visit had instilled a deep paranoia in his heart, and he knew that once King Duncan returned he would be imprisoned... or worse.

He had originally been hoping that everything would go unnoticed in King Duncan's absence, and that no officials would ever show up at his doorstep, but they had – and worse, they had left his office angry. If they had left happy, then the reprimand he faced would be much smaller. But now, now he knew that upon King Duncan's return he would be taken into custody and he would be imprisoned or killed.

And so all of his fear hinged on King Duncan's return. Of course, the king would return every so often to make sure his kingdom's affairs were in order.

Unless...

Unless he was trapped away from his kingdom. If he was trapped by winter, he wouldn't return to the kingdom for months to come. And so there was just the matter of how to ensure that King Duncan stayed away for as long as possible; how could the Baron get the king to stay in the Steppes until he was snowed in?

Simple. Make it impossible for the king to travel until winter had already set in. Now, there were several ways to do this, but the easiest and cleanest way would be a direct blow to the king himself. An injury that would keep him from moving for a few weeks would suffice. He didn't dare do something that would cause the king's death; no, then he would surely face his own execution. He just needed a distraction.

And that was why he hired Sir Guy of Gisborne, the very best marksman in the surrounding baronies that wasn't affiliated with the Rangers. He paid Sir Guy handsomely with the promise that Sir Guy would give the king a serious injury with a shot that would leave him in the Steppes until spring thawed the mountains.

And the best part? Sir Guy would shoot the king with a Ranger's arrow, so that the Rangers would be to blame for the king's injury. That way, once the king returned, those awful Rangers would be blamed and no one would listen to them about the Baron's own actions.

Yes, it was perfect. He would make that awful man, Robin Hood, the one they blamed.

And Sir Guy was very good at his job. He found one of the spare arrow shafts that the Rangers had left after ambushing one of the tax carriages and changed out the tip for a sharp one rather than the dull ones the Rangers had used to prevent serious injury.

That is how it came to be that Sir Guy shot King Duncan in his right shoulder – not his left, for fear of hitting his heart on accident – with an arrow that was undoubtedly a Ranger's arrow. But the detail that they missed was that the king had handed off the letter already, which would tell Mauch, Robin, Will, Halt, and Gilan they needed to arrest the Baron in three weeks' time.

No, the Baron was not a stupid man. But he was a fearful man. He feared not only the king's return, but he also feared Robin Hood. He feared the Robin Hood who had orchestrated the ambush of not one, not two, but four of his tax carts; he feared the Robin Hood who had been in the area unnoticed for who knows how long; he feared the stories and rumors of Robin Hood spreading in the streets. But his fear clouded his thoughts... He never did ask why the Robin Hood of the Rangers that he encountered in his office was a girl, but the stories were of a man. He never assumed they were the same person, he always thought they were different. He was wrong, but I suppose he was also right.

Robin Hood the girl was a child; she was young, she was fiery, she was rebellious, she had a temper that could kill... but more than anything else, she was vulnerable.

Robin Hood the man was an adult; wise; passionate; willing to learn, and more than anything else, wanted to help.

It was strange what a little disguise could do to her.

And so the Baron decided that he needed help. He needed someone who would be bribed by his taxes, someone who would do all his dirty work, someone who had next to no morals but would be loyal... And when he met sir Guy of Gisborne, he knew he had found the perfect man.

Sir Guy was tall and well-built, with somewhat greasy hair that curled at the nape of his neck. He had this rugged look to him and never seemed clean-shaven but also never had a full beard, and he had a deep sadness in his dark eyes that made him vulnerable and easy to manipulate. He looked intimidating and always carried a cleaned and polished sword in his belt, and it was never in a scabbard. It simply showed and glittered, which the Baron liked because if there was any blood on the sword, it would show for all the world to see. A bared blade held a certain malice that a covered one didn't, which was perfect.

The most valuable thing about Sir Guy was his personality, though. He was a rough sort of man, who had become jaded over his 34 years of life, and he had come to expect the world to hurt him in every way. His parents had died without updating their will, leaving Sir Guy with nothing but his title and resulting in everything they owned going to his older brother. The love of his life whom he had planned on marrying after 5 years of courting had died tragically in a fire, and he had watched her burn to death through a window too small for him to climb through and rescue her. That kind of thing left a man broken, hollow, and searching.

And those things made him easy to manipulate, and made him loyal to anyone who promised to fill the hole in his chest. It would be wrong of you to think that Sir Guy was a bad man. No, he was a sad man, a broken man, a tired man... a man who bad things happened to. He was not strong enough to maintain the dignity that his younger self would have wanted him to have.

All that he had left was the promise of the Baron: the promise that if Sir Guy helped the Baron get rid of Robin Hood, the Baron would give Sir Guy one twentieth of the taxes for so long as the Baron collected them, which would be enough for Sir Guy to buy himself a plot of land and rebuild his life. And that promise meant everything to Sir Guy, and he was willing to do anything – _anything – _to preserve it.

Even shoot the king.

Sir Guy shot the king from very far away, so as to avoid being seen, and he disappeared easily between the tents in the chaos after the king fell. It took him a week to return to the barony, which was around the same time that the messenger arrived – the messenger who had Duncan's letter.

Unfortunately, the messenger didn't know anything of what had happened on that fief, and it was his ignorance that would lead to one of the greatest catastrophes Robin Hood and his/her merry band of Rangers would ever see.

You see, under normal circumstances, the messenger would report immediately to the Baron to seek the location of any Rangers visiting the fief. If it was a native Ranger, then he would go immediately to their address, but because Halt was not the Ranger of Nottingham, he did not have an address associated with the fief. He did not know that Halt was in Sherwood Forest a few miles away, so he decided to report to the Baron as protocol stated.

The messenger and Sir Guy met while stabling their horses by the castle. When the messenger mentioned he had a letter for the Ranger Halt from King Duncan to deliver to the Baron, Sir Guy's ears perked up.

"I can give it to the Baron if you'd like. That's where I'm headed right now, actually," Sir Guy offered, staring down his nose at the messenger.

"Well, you see, sir, it's actually protocol that I give it directly to the Baron or get a new address from the Baron to deliver it to. It has sensitive information, you see," the boy squeaked out, uncomfortable with saying no to a man with such a large sword sticking out of his belt.

Sir Guy offered the boy a smile but the smile scared the boy more than Sir Guy's previous face. Sir Guy's smile was a broken smile that didn't reach his eyes, as though it took effort for his face to move out of its stern frown. It was more just showing his teeth than a smile, and the boy was completely convinced that Sir Guy was about to eat him alive.

"I'll escort you to him then, so you can go to an inn and rest as soon as possible," Sir Guy offered, dropping his smile stonily. The boy nodded, too scared to talk, and Sir Guy spun on the heel of his boot and exited the little stable. He pushed through the main entrance and up the stairs, not bothering to check if the boy was still behind him, and walked confidently into the room in front of the Baron's office.

The entry room was simple enough; it had several chairs for those waiting to see the Baron, although the chairs were almost always empty now, and there was a large desk which was always manned by a servant who served as the Baron's secretary.

"If you would let the Baron know that we are here to see him," Sir Guy said, smiling at the Baron's servant.

"Certainly," the girl got to her feet quickly, bowed, and scampered to the door leading to the Baron's office. She poked her head through, and her voice carried back to Sir Guy, "My lord? Sir Guy of Gisborne would like to see you."

"Send him in," the Baron bellowed, and the girl flinched backwards away from the door. She turned to face Sir Guy.

"He will see you now," the girl said, offering Sir Guy a timid smile. He smiled back, but it was that same dead smile that made the girl feel cold inside. He walked past her, tall and proud, and brought the messenger boy with him.

"What is it that you want? Was it success-" the Baron's voice cut off as he saw the boy with Sir Guy.

"My Lord," Sir Guy said, bowing his head in the Baron's direction. "This is one of the King's messengers. He has a letter to be delivered to the Ranger Halt."

The Baron's eyes flashed at Sir Guy, not fully understanding what Sir Guy was saying. But the Baron knew that Sir Guy was smarter than he, and had faith that whatever Sir Guy was doing had a good reason.

"Ah ha, I see," the Baron said. "Well, if you hand me the letter I will ensure its delivery."

The boy nodded, scurried up to the Baron's desk, handed him the letter, and then retreated back to Sir Guy's side.

"Was that all?" the Baron asked. The boy nodded. "Then please, go rest. I recommend the McMillan inn in the village. The best cheap housing in the area."

"Thank you, sir," the boy said. "Should I return at a later date for a reply letter to the King?"

"No, no, you rest. If Halt needs to reply, then we will deal with that at the time."

The boy nodded again and walked backwards out the door and disappeared. In the few moments of silence that followed, Sir Guy took the opportunity to gently shut the door. He turned to look at the Baron and stood behind one of the chairs.

"So, what precisely was that all about?" the Baron asked, fixing Sir Guy with a stern eye.

"Now we have a private letter from King Duncan to Halt," Sir Guy said, excitement in his voice. "Basically, this is our ticket into doing anything we could possibly want. We now know what the King was planning with Halt, we know what Halt told the King, and most importantly... we can change the contents of this letter."


	31. A Visitor

Robin crouched in the bushes, watching the road. Halt was with her, leaning back against a tree with his cloak pulled down over his eyes, apparently fast asleep. They had been waiting here for the last three days to see if a messenger would appear with a reply to Halt; they had no other way of getting a return message.

Robin heard footsteps and glanced over at Halt to see his eyes wide open, watching the road in front of them. A young man was walking down the road with something clutched in his hands. Robin got to her feet and melted out from the bushes.

"Hello," she said, greeting the man. The man jumped, watching her with wide eyes, and he took a subconscious step backwards. "Might I ask what you are doing so far from the city?"

"I am delivering a letter," the man said, his voice trembling ever so slightly as he regained his composure.

"I don't suppose that would be for the Ranger Halt, would it?" Halt's voice asked from the bushes, and he walked out through the same path that Robin had taken.

"It would be," the man said. "From King Duncan himself."

"Well you are in luck," Halt said. "For I am Halt."

"I'm going to need some form of identification," the man said, a little bit uneasy.

Halt just stared at the man, his face taking on an _are you f*cking kidding me _expression.

"How about the ranger's cloak? The knives? The bow? Surely you can see that I am a Ranger, and a Ranger would not lie."

The man looked like he was prepared to argue but he decided not to, which was probably the best option, and handed Halt the letter. Halt took it and gave the man a fake smile until the man got unnerved, turned around, and returned the way he came. Halt rolled his eyes and glanced over at Robin, smirking somewhat.

"I'm glad to know my letter was in such safe hands," Halt said.

"Well, you've got it, so can we please go meet the others? The next tax car is supposed to go by in under an hour," Robin said, impatient as ever.

"You are far too anxious," Halt sighed. "Lead the way." Robin bounced on her toes and slid back into the underbrush, creeping along the road to where she knew Will was waiting to stake out the next tax cart.

The taxes worked on a rotating cycle, and one cart would go to each of the eight sections of the barony, one approximately every four days. They all met up on this main road before heading up to the castle to deposit their share of the taxes in the treasury. The Rangers had successfully stopped and robbed five of the last seven, but they were getting harder and harder to catch. They went with more armed guards now, and they had reached the end of the list that Alan A Dale had supplied with the dates on them. Additionally, some of the carts were traveling at night now, and so if they didn't have someone watching the road at all times a cart could slip through their fingers.

Robin was sure about this one, though. It was the very last one on Alan's list, and it was the cart from the Northern section of the Barony. The Northern cart hadn't come down here before, and she hoped that the snow had kept them from hearing about the recent strings of ambushes.

A mile of walking later, she saw Alan's bright blue hood pulled up over his head. After she saw Alan, she was able to pick out Mauch and Will's indistinct forms in the leaves, Ranger's cloaks pulled over their heads. Halt had, of course, already seen them and was a step ahead of her.

"Where's Gilan?" he asked, scowling darkly. Alan and Little John looked up, surprised to see Robin and Halt, but Will just frowned back.

"I don't know. He headed back to camp about an hour ago, and he didn't come back," Will replied.

"I'll go back and look for him, if you'd like," Alan said. "It's boring hanging out around here anyway. You Rangers always take all the fun."

"Aye," Little John agreed. "I'll head back with you, in case something happened. You're too scrawny to pick 'im up if he's fallen."

Alan glared daggers at Little John, rolled his eyes and jumped to his feet. "I'm trusting that the four of you ought to be plenty to deal with this cart?"

"Of course," Halt said breezily, but Robin wasn't so sure. The last few carts had been heavily armed... She considered saying something, but she decided that she trusted Halt's judgment more than her own gut feeling. Alan and Little John disappeared back through the trees, not nearly so quiet as a Ranger but quiet in their own rights, leaving Robin, Will, Halt and Mauch to wait for the tax car.

They didn't have long to wait. A few minutes later, Halt and Will perked up, Robin and Mauch soon on their heels. The sound of horse hooves and the rattle of a cart across the uneven road made them glance out from the bushes.

"The cart is under-armed," Robin breathed, relief flooding her chest. The north must not have known about the mysterious Robin Hood. Only four guards walked around the cart, but an additional armed guard was driving the horses forwards. That was hardly going to be a challenge, she knew.

Her side had healed, so that was no longer a tactic that they were tempted to use. Additionally, if the carts had been warned, they would have been warned about a young boy faking an injury. So, there was a new tactic.

Mauch threw off his cloak and then ran out into the road, yelling at the top of his lungs. What he was yelling was completely incoherent, and Robin sighed. It would be so much better if they could understand what he was saying... Robin pulled out her bow and ran out into the road after him, her bow drawn and trained just over his head in case she accidentally lost her grip on the arrow (which she wouldn't, of course, but she was paranoid).

"HALT!" she yelled, smirking to herself at the play on words/names. "YOU ARE AN ENEMY OF THE STATE! YOU ARE UNDER ARREST!" Mauch looked back over his shoulder at her, grinned, but kept running up the road towards the carriage. She looked ahead and saw that the guards had paused, staring ahead, uncertain of what was going on.

"HE IS A THIEF! HE HAS STOLEN TAXES FROM THE BARON!" she yelled again, letting the arrow fly into a tree-trunk to Mauch's left. He yelped, surprised, and darted to the right, weaving from side to side as though he was afraid of being shot.

"Halt, citizen!" one of the guards said, stepping towards Mauch's oncoming form, and drew his sword. Mauch skidded to a stop a few feet from the blade and threw his hands up into the air. Robin ran up behind him, another arrow notched and ready. She felt a surge of victory rise up in her chest. The entire point of this play had been to stop the cart; when it was still moving, as they'd discovered, they were much harder to catch.

"He is a prisoner of the state," Robin said, her voice breathy.

"Can I see some identification?" the guard asked, staring down his long nose at Robin.

"Nope," Robin said, and let her arrow fly. It thudded against the metal of the guard's helmet and he fell to the ground. Before he had even hit the ground, arrows had slammed into the helmets of two more guards, one from Will and one from Halt. Mauch spun and slammed the hilt of his saxe knife into the fourth guard's head, causing him to crumple in a heap by his feet.

Will sprinted along the open street to the cart, heading for the door of the carriage while Halt felled the driving guard, who had just managed to untangle himself from the reigns. Robin turned quickly and met Will by the door. They made eye contact for a split moment and then Robin reached for the door. Will armed himself with his knives, waiting for it to open, and Robin held up her fingers. They had no idea who or what was inside the cart, but Will was prepared for anything he might face. Her fingers counted down; 3... 2... 1...

The door to the cart slammed open, and Will lunged inside. He paused half way through the door and fell flat on his face. Robin stared, wondering why he fell, and stepped around the door to see.

Will was staring at the occupant of the carriage from the floor, his eyes wide as he scrambled back to his feet.

"Alyss?!"


	32. Stolen Away

**I am actually exceedingly excited because I have actually hit 100 reviews on a story! This is the first time that's ever happened. I am giddy and everything, super excited and whatnot. **

"Will!" a girl's voice came from inside the cart. "There you are!"

Will took a step back from the carriage, and the occupant emerged from the shadows. The occupant was a girl with blonde hair that fell in elegant rings around her face and down her shoulders. Her skin was smooth and had a sort of glow to it, and her eyes were a deep shade of calm grey. A smile lit up her face and she jumped from the carriage, wrapping her arms around Will. Robin got the impression that this was surprisingly undignified for her.

Robin, of course, had no idea who Alyss was or why she was here, but it was evident enough that she and Will had a "more than friends" relationship. Robin glanced at her hand an took note that she had no rings on her fingers, so she wasn't entirely sure what their relationship was supposed to be.

"How?" Will asked, separating himself from Alyss' embrace after several long moments (long, awkward moments from Robin's perspective). Alyss didn't answer him, but she did pull him back to her in a kiss.

"I'll explain that later," Alyss said. "I'm here on important business, from the King."

"From Duncan?" Halt interjected, stepping around the cart to make eye contact with Alyss.

"Hullo, Halt!" Alyss replied, smiling openly. "It's been a long time. And yes, from Duncan."

"What would he have to say that isn't in this letter?" Halt held up the letter that he still had grasped in his hand. Halt raised an eyebrow, glancing down at the letter once more.

"The things he had written in the letter are no longer valid." Alyss released Will from her grasp and assumed a more diplomatic posture. She folded her hands in front of her, and squared her shoulders.

"Well, what's the difference, then?" Robin interjected. While the others might know Alyss, Robin certainly didn't and had no reason to trust her. Additionally, one of the things Robin had learned in her early years was that magic existed in this land. She didn't know what the limits of magic were, but she was willing to bet that a good sorcerer could copy someone else's face.

"The King was attacked shortly after sending the letter," Alyss replied. "He was shot."

A silent murmur raced in between Will and Halt. Mauch glanced over at Robin and she looked back, her eyebrows knit with uncertainty.

"Alright, and why not just send another letter?" Mauch asked.

"He realized that it might take an extra week or two for the first letter to reach Halt because the messenger wouldn't know precisely where Halt was, and so it wouldn't be reliable to send the second letter to Halt or else it might not have gotten here until to late," Alyss replied. "So he sent the second letter to me, because he knew that I would be able to find you."

"What are you doing in the tax cart?" Robin asked, not entirely fitting two and two together.

"I'm under cover," she replied. "I'm supposed to be the noble representative from the Northern county, bringing the tax in."

"Well... why?" Mauch asked, frowning in concentration.

"Two reasons. Firstly, the king had me in this position for several months now." She shot a glance at Will, her face apologetic. "Secondly, it was the only way I could be sure to run into you lot."

"True," Halt said, nodding.

"This way, you would see me immediately. The other way, I might have wandered for days before I saw you... or, rather, you saw me."

"What does the king have to say?" Halt asked.

Alyss reached within her robes and brandished a letter with the seal broken. She handed it back to Halt, her face somewhat grim. He opened the letter and skimmed it, his eyes flickering across the page like a snake's tongue. His already grumpy resting-face sank into a deep scowl, and then he closed the letter and tucked it within his cloak.

"What did it say?" Will asked, his own brow knit.

"Later," Halt said, shooting Robin a fleeting glance that made her stomach turn. "In quiet."

Robin felt slightly insulted and nettled, but she didn't say anything. She pretended she didn't notice and glanced over her shoulder, scrambling for something to say that would ease the tension in the air.

"I wonder where Alan and Little John went? They should have been back with Gilan by now," she said, awkward.

"Alan? Little John? I'm sorry," Alyss said, suddenly realizing she knew practically no one there. "I don't believe we've been properly introduced. I'm Alyss." She reached her hand out to Robin, smiling evenly.

"Robin Hood," Robin said. "Or... Alis, Alisandra, Sandy, you get your pick."

"Alis? Our names are practically the same!" Alyss said, smiling. "Do you go by Robin Hood, though?"

"Now," Robin replied, nodding. "They call me Robin." She indicated to all the others standing around.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Robin. I didn't know you knew Halt or Will?" Alyss said, glancing up.

"She's my apprentice," Will said.

"She?" Alyss asked, squinting down at Robin again. "Oh! Well, that would make a lot more sense than a boy named Alisandra, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, right." Robin glanced down at her masculine disguise. "I forgot I was dressed as a lad."

"It was a good question, about Gilan and Little John and Alan, though," Will said, looking back at the woods thoughtfully.

"I can go," Mauch volunteered.

"Don't be silly," Halt cut in. "We're all heading back that way anyway, right?"

"I'm not," Alyss said, looking at Will wistfully. "I have to finish this mission. I'm under cover as a tax-deliverer, remember? I'm supposedly escorting my younger 'brother' here to learn the ways of running a barony, and we brought the taxes with us on the way."

"Brother?" Robin asked, peeking into the cart. She saw no one.

"Indeed," she said, turning to look over her shoulder. "Marius, you can come out if you'd like. They aren't actually robbing the cart."

"I wasn't hiding," a boy's voice declared from within the depths of the cart. "I simply had to count the tax money to make sure everything was in order!"

"Of course you weren't," she placated him.

A boy poked his head around the edge of the door, a small chest filled with coins tucked in his grip. He was older than Robin had first thought, judging from his voice. He was probably her age, maybe a year or two older, and he was easily taller than she was (although that wasn't much of a challenge). He had a strong jaw, and a mop of auburn hair that kept flopping into his eyes even though it looked like it had been geled into place.

He definitely didn't fit the voice she had heard moments before.

"Rangers can be scary, I get it," Will laughed, and the boy flushed. "I'm Will, this is Robin Hood, Mauch, and Halt."

"I'm Marius, so they call me," the boy said, stepping out of the cart. "And you've apparently met my elder sister, Alyss as you call her." He had a pronounced accent, but it wasn't one that Robin was familiar with.

"And I'm under cover as the Maid Marian," Alyss filled in. "We're supposedly the children of the Baron's brother, whom he never bothered to actually meet."

"I see," Will said, rubbing his hand across his face.

"We really must be going, or else something will be amiss. If you need to call upon me at the castle, do not come dressed as such... and, if you wouldn't mind, call upon the Maid Marian rather than Alyss," Alyss replied, giving Will one final hug. Robin was intrigued by the girl, especially because it seemed she had gone over a transition from informal to a proper diplomat in a single short conversation.

"I'm glad you're safe," Will whispered into Alyss's ear, just loud enough for Robin to hear it. Alyss smiled.

"Wait," Robin interjected. "What about the money that we robbed this carriage for?"

"If I take it to the Baron, we'll be seen in a better light and be able to get closer to him," Alyss said. "Which would be very valuable..."

"I agree, do it," Halt said, cutting through the sentimental looks that Alyss and Will kept exchanging. "Get going, too. I'll wake up your guards, and then we're going to go figure out what precisely happened to Gilan, Alan and Little John."

As they got closer to the camp site, an eerie air fell over the party. The forest seemed to get grayer, and Robin's stomach filled with butterflies. No, perhaps butterflies weren't right, she decided – perhaps dark, shadowed moths were better. She knew something was wrong on an instinctive level. She wasn't quite sure what level this was, or where it came from, but she knew what it meant. The feeling was familiar, but she wasn't sure where it came from...

She had had this feeling only twice before. The first time was the day her father died, and a couple weeks letter she got confirmation of his death at the hands of Morgarath. The second time was after she had the dream of Will getting shot through the chest with an arrow. While the second hadn't come true, she knew that the first one had, so she gave this feeling a certain level of respect.

The silence of the woods only made the feeling worse. She noticed as they grew closer, the bird songs grew quieter and then stopped altogether... almost as though the animals had fled from the area, just as animals flee from forest fires or earthquakes. Despite her sense of danger, they kept walking.

The camp came into view, and it was completely empty. Robin stopped walking, staring out at the camp site. Halt and Will didn't; Halt and Will saw something that Robin didn't see. Halt walked towards the centre and crouched down, looking at the scuffed leaves. Now that Robin knew where to look, she saw that some of the leaves had their damp undersides turned up towards the sky.

Halt and Will were whispering to each other, and Robin approached slowly. She walked around the scuffed clearing that they were observing. What she wanted to see was the cabin-like structure that they had hidden under the leaves. She walked towards the door and saw a long, cruel dagger standing hilt-up in the door.

They all knew what had happened now, but no one wanted to say it. Will was the one that broke the silence.

"Well, I suppose we've got to go break them out of prison, haven't we?"


	33. Time To Grow Up

**Soooo... I actually wrote this ages ago, but it didn't save. And then I went out of the country, so I only just realized it... I'm sorry, guys. Love you 3**

Robin sat on the sloping hill that covered their camp. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees, staring out at the sunset on the horizon. Her heart rested in the pit of her stomach and she felt absolutely terrible. She was a _failure. _

Once they had gotten to camp, it hadn't taken her (or the others) long to figure out what had happened. Their camp had been completely empty, but there were traces of a scuffle, and a knife had been left – threateningly – in their door. Gilan, Alan and Little John had been kidnapped.

Robin had pieced together what had happened quickly enough. Gilan had returned to camp to see the camp filled with soldiers that outnumbered him by sheer, brute force. They took him hostage and then waited for others to appear in the clearing. When Alan and Little John showed up, looking for Gilan, the soldiers took them as well. And then, the soldiers (or whomever) took the trio, while leaving the dagger in the door as a message.

Robin wondered why they had taken Gilan, Alan, and Little John. Was she not who they wanted? Were they not looking for Robin Hood? And if so, then why would they leave with only those three? Maybe they thought Gilan was Robin Hood.

Robin's stomach clinched.

How had the soldiers found the camp in the first place? What had she done wrong that had led to their capture? Were they safe?

"It isn't your fault, you know," a voice whispered from her right. She flinched and spun, and saw that Halt had sat down beside her without her knowing. Halt wasn't looking at her, but was instead looking at the same horizon she had been staring at moments before.

Robin didn't say anything. She just turned back to the horizon and rested her chin on her knees again.

"You haven't been a Ranger's apprentice for long enough," Halt continued. "It is something that we should not have rested on your shoulders."

"It shouldn't matter how long I've been a Ranger," Robin whispered, gritting her teeth. "I should be smart enough to not lose my own men."

"Don't be ridiculous," Halt said, his tone sharp. "This danger is no surprise. We are ambushing a Baron with tons of soldiers, and you think there is no danger? These risks are part of being a Ranger. Gilan knew that. I knew that. Will knew that. Mauch knew that. Alan and Little John knew what they were signing on for. This isn't a _safe _job."

"I should've been able to keep them out of the reach of the Baron's men," Robin said stubbornly.

"If you think that will ever happen, on any mission, you are sorely mistaken," Halt said irritably. "Part of being a Ranger is danger. If you expect there to be none, then you are in the wrong profession and maybe you should go back to being a farmer."

Robin looked up at him sharply. His face was blank, and he still wasn't looking at her.

"Besides," he continued after a moment, "Did you really think you were entirely in control of this mission?"

She raised an eyebrow, and realization washed over her. She had been so naive to think that they had really put her in charge; of course they weren't going to let a girl who wasn't even through her first year of apprenticeship run an entire mission like this.

"Oh," she murmured, turning back to the horizon.

"You might be interested to know that they had meticulously planned this ambush," Halt said. She glanced back at him again and saw that he was holding out a letter in his fist. She took it from him gently, and saw the king's broken seal. She opened it slowly.

_Dearest Ranger,_

_Thank you kindly for your information. I am on my way now to deal with the situation, because it is of the upmost importance. Please go ahead and detain the Baron for my return and questioning. _

_Sincerely,_

_King Duncan._

"So we should go ahead and get moving, shouldn't we? We can kidnap the Baron and get the others back all at once," Robin said, looking at Halt and holding out the letter to return it.

"No, it's fake," Halt said, shaking his head, and pointing to the first part of the letter. "He would have called me Halt, and he would never have signed it 'Sincerely, King Duncan'. He also wouldn't have sent something so brief, and he wouldn't be able to leave immediately. This is a fake letter, and I bet it's been forged by the Baron."

"Oh," Robin said, looking at the letter again.

"They wanted for us to be distracted, waiting for the letter, so they could minimize our numbers," Halt said slowly. "Then, they wanted the remaining half of us to try to kidnap the baron and free our kidnapped friends, when they are ready and waiting for us. Then I guess they would put us on display for treason."

"Oh, Robin said again, her face flushing. She realized she had been so completely ready to do what the Baron wanted; he had nearly tricked her. "But... we have to do the second part of that, don't we? We have to get Gilan and Alan and Little John back."

Halt nodded grimly.

"But he suspects that we would be making the Baron our first priority. We have to make Gilan, Alan, and Little John our priority."

Robin nodded slowly. Halt watched her process the information and leaned backwards.

"We should talk to Will," she said finally. "And see what he thinks."

Halt studied her. He saw a lot in her; she was grim, and determined, and stubborn and passionate. She was a good kid, and she would be a good Ranger. He marveled at the fact that she had been so close to spending her life as a farm hand. He also saw something else in her; complete dedication to Will. Will had been the one who had gotten her out of a fate she deemed worse than hell, and he had trusted her and put faith in her. He had supported her, and in return she was completely loyal to Will. She would do anything for him. He marveled at the thought; had Will ever been that dedicated to him?

"I think that I need to go talk to Alyss," Will said. Halt had known Will was approaching, as he always did, but Robin obviously hadn't. Robin flinched, looking over her shoulder at Will. Will continued, "She should be at the castle now. She should have information about Gilan and the others, and we can figure out what to do from there."

"Good idea," Halt said, nodding briskly.

"I'm going to go after nightfall. I have no idea how to find her, though."

"Just ask a guard for the Maid Marian," Robin said, shrugging. "They were too drunk to really care, you know. Besides, no one ever thinks twice when someone asks to see a lord or lady in a compound like this."

Halt looked at her again. He kept forgetting that she had a complicated background. Yes, she had been an orphan in the Ward, but she had been someone before that.

"That's a valid point," Halt conceded. He glanced over to the horizon, watching the sun begin to dip below the mountains. "Will, if you are going to go, you should go before it is too suspiciously late, but just dark enough to shroud your face. Leave your cloak, you don't want to mark yourself a Ranger. Robin, you and Mauch should go ahead and try to sleep, even if just for a little while. Any sleep is better than none. We can't do anything until Will returns anyway."

Robin looked at the two of them and nodded, quietly.

Halt felt a slight pang. Robin hadn't been quiet before, not really. Not after they had found out she was a girl, anyway. She had had spunk, and character, and a certain fire about her. She wouldn't have just nodded before, she would have said something. Shared her opinion. Now, it was just a quiet nod.

He worried that this experience had broken her. Maybe it was their fault; maybe they should have trained her more first, maybe they should have gotten her through her first few months as an apprentice first, maybe they shouldn't have let her think this all depended on her.

Or maybe this was just the push she needed to grow up and realize just what she was getting into. Maybe it made her more mature.

She slunk over the hill and disappeared from sight.

He turned his attention back to Will. "Be careful, Will. No more funny business with this mission. It's getting more dangerous than it should be, and we have to make sure that Robin and Mauch come out of this alright. Let's just get out of this and get them back to training to become Rangers."


	34. All She Has

**Hey guys! So, a couple things. **

**1) VERY IMPORTANT TO THE STORY; PLEASE READ: So, I've finally read the 12th book. I was assuming I'd be able to incorperate it into this story like I had the last 5 or 6 or so, but damn I was wrong. I was NOT expecting him to use the same idea I did; the first female Ranger. He did it in a very different way, so different that there is no way I can make them both happen. So, I've decided how the timeline is going to work out. This is when this story takes place: It begins 6 months after Alyss "dies", so it is a year before the whole thing with Maddie is supposed to take place, and also before Crowley dies, so Gilan isn't in charge yet. **

**2) CALLING ALL WRITERS: So as you're all probably aware, Frozen is a big thing right now. And, well, my baby cousins and whatnot have made me watch it SO MANY TIMES that I feel the need to write a fanfic about it. I have an inkling of an idea, but beyond that... mrp. I'd really like to co-author it though, so if you're interested in that please contact me!**

Robin ran. No, "ran" didn't describe it – she sprinted. She threw all of her energy into her legs, all of the adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream and pouring into her muscles. She galloped. But still, it was like she was running through jelly. She was running so slow; she couldn't go anywhere. Terror made her heart rise into her throat and choke her, and her brain felt like it was running so quickly that it was causing a migraine.

Robin knew she was dreaming, of course. But even though she knew it, that didn't stop the panic. All she saw was an arrow slowly streaking through the air. All she felt was adrenaline. All she smelled was smoke, and all she tasted was the fowl metallic taste of blood. All she head was her own heart pounding in her ears accompanied by the sound of her voice, screaming.

"WILL!" Her voice tore from her throat, leaving it raw. She watched Will turn and saw the arrow bear directly into his chest. Shock crossed his face, followed by dismay and pain.

Time seemed to start working correctly again. She was by his side as his knees buckled and she caught him before he fell all the way to the ground. She sagged under his weight.

"No no no... no... no..." she murmured, holding him tight. This was, undeniably, her greatest fear. Her mother had died, and her father, and she had been all alone. No one had been there for her, she had been left to a farmer, and then Will had saved her. Will was _all she had. _He was her everything. He was her new father figure, her new mentor, the closest thing she had to family, the one who had saved her life and the one who had accepted her and given her another chance. Will was _everything _to her. She would _die _for him.

She stared down into his face and saw him struggling to breathe. His fingers clutched limply at his chest and she moved his hand away, worried about jarring the arrow in his chest. His eyes were flickering and she knew he was going to die. The arrow was in his heart, and it was the only thing keeping him alive. When she took it out, blood would be pumped from his heart directly into his chest cavities. He would die in a handful of seconds. But if she left it in, he would die as well.

She ripped the shirt away from the arrow, staring at the blood dribbling down his chest. She pulled it out quickly and shoved her finger into the open wound, searching for the hole in his heart and blocking it with her finger. She yanked his first-aid kid from around his waist, fumbling for a needle and thread, hoping that she could stitch the hole back together. When she finally found the needle, she removed her finger from his heart and plunged in with the needle.

Blood flowed freely out of the wound in his chest and she couldn't see what she was doing, but she still tried. She pushed the needle through the tissue of his heart and Will moaned quietly, and then suddenly became still.

It became much easier for her to push the needle and thread through his heart now... because his heart wasn't beating anymore. She froze and stared at his face.

"Will?" she asked, her voice caught in her throat. "Will?!"

There was no response. His glassy eyes were open and staring at the sky.

"Will! NO! COME BACK!" she screamed and hit his chest with her hand, hard. "WILL!" Her vision blurred and hot, salty tears rolled down her face. "WILL! Will... Will don't leave me..." She sagged over his body, burying her face in his chest and not caring about the blood that covered her face. "Will... please..."

Rough hands grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back. Halt's voice echoed in her ears, "Robin. Robin, it's over. Come back, Robin."

"NO!" she screamed, struggling and kicking and punching. "WILL!"

She woke with a start, still screaming and kicking.

"Robin!" Halt yelled at her, his hands still on her shoulders. "Robin, calm down!"

"Will!" she screamed, trying to get away from Halt. She spun, looking around the trees, trying to find Will's face.

"Robin, it's over! You're okay. You're back. It was just a dream," Halt said, shaking her roughly.

"It wasn't just a dream! He's dead!" she yelled, finally pulling free of Halt's hands. She spun to stare at Halt and saw Will standing behind him. Will's eyes were wide and worried, his hands slack in front of him. She stared at him, not entirely sure if she believed what she was seeing.

She opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn't find her voice. Instead she just ran and hugged him roughly, tears streaming down her face.

"You had the dream again?" Will whispered into her hair.

"Yeah," she said, her voice breaking. It took her a moment to remember where the '_again' _came from, but then she remembered she had dreamed of his death before. The same death. An arrow through the heart.

"It's just a dream," he whispered. She wanted to tell him that it wasn't; that it wasn't just a dream. That it was going to happen. That Will was going to die and no matter what she did, she wasn't going to be able to prevent that arrow from flying.

"I knew it was a dream when I was there," she said after a moment. "But it still felt real."

She took a deep, shuddering breath and took a step back. She rubbed her fists across her cheeks, wiping the tears away.

"So," she said, avoiding his gaze. "Uh... what did Alyss say?"

"She said they are going to be executed publicly," Will replied, his voice suddenly business-like. "Once the sun is completely above the horizon, they will be executed in the square to send a message. They will be made an example of, supposedly."

"Well... I guess that makes our job easier," Halt suggested. Robin looked at him and took in his posture; he was calm in posture but something in his face was taught. "It'll be easier to get to them."

"Not until they're out practically walking to their deaths," Robin said, knitting her brow in confusion. Halt raised his eyebrows at her, and realization washed over there. "You're telling me you want to wait until they are practically hanging from the gallows to save them?! What if we aren't fast enough?! What if our timing is off, and they die?! We can't cut it that close!"

"Then perhaps we should get moving," Halt said mildly. "Will, would you care to lead the way?" Will's lips pressed into a thin line, but then he nodded.

"Let's go."

**Remember to review!**


	35. Plans To Escape

**Sorry it took so long! I'm a slacker, what can I say... I finally got back into archery after a couple years out for a wrist injury, and dammit do NOT shoot a 40# bow without a guard on your ENTIRE ARM. I literally have a huge bruise three inches long and 2 inches wide on the side of my elbow.**

When Gilan had gone back to the clearing, thirty men had been waiting for him in complete silence. They closed in around him, ambushed him. He had managed to take five of them out, but there were just too many. They put him in chains and slung him over a horse like a bag of rubbish. Then, Alan and Little John had shown up. They were swiftly captured as well. The men waited another thirty minutes for someone else to appear for them to kidnap, but no one came.

"Where's Robin 'Ood?" the leader of the group had asked. Gilan, Alan, and Little John didn't reply. The leader hit Gilan repeatedly, hoping for an answer. Of course, Gilan could have taken the man's punches all day... But Gilan wanted them to get out of the clearing. If Halt, Will, Robin and Mauch returned while those men were still in the clearing, they would all be taken captive too, and then they'd all be screwed. So, that left Gilan with precisely one option.

"I'm Robin Hood," Gilan said, finally.

"Really?" the leader asked, scowling down at him. "I heard Robin 'Ood was a tiny squick of a lad. You aren't big, but you aren't precisely tiny either."

"People love to exaggerate," Gilan said, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

"I know you have more men. When will they return?" the leader asked.

"Two days," Gilan lied.

The man snorted. "Not waiting that long," he sneered. "Bill! Leave them a message..."

A scrawny, mean looking man – Bill – grinned in response. He pulled a dagger from his belt and threw it into the ground, tip digging into the leaves.

"Let's go," the leader said.

When they arrived at the Baron's castle, the three of them – Gilan, Alan, and Little John – were promptly thrown in a cell. Within a half-hour, a guard appeared and told them they were sentenced to death the following morning at dawn.

Gilan felt ill to his stomach. He had spent the entire night trying to get out of the cell, but no matter what he did he was trapped. They had taken everything away from him; his sword, his cloak, everything but his shirt, shoes, and pants. He had always managed to find a way out of this before, but now... now there was no way out. He cursed himself under his breath; how had he been so foolish?

He hoped that Will, Halt, Robin, and Mauch had realized it and come up with a plan to help. But he knew he couldn't rely on that... If they had stayed by the road, or gone on a trip, they might not be discovering they were gone until it was too late for them to make a plan.

All of his weaponry was gone, but they hadn't taken the pin from his cloak. He took off his oakleaf gently, and he poised the point on the backside of the pin. He crept towards the door, hoping to pick the lock. He wedged the thin strip of metal into the door and rattled it around inside.

"Hey, you!" a man's voice yelled, and Gilan snapped his hand and his pin back inside the iron bars. A guard came into view. The man was short and fat, with a greasy face colored with too much liquor, but his beady little eyes were fixed on Gilan's hand none the less. "What have you got there?!"

"Just a pendant for good luck," Gilan breathed.

"Fat chance! Hand it over," the man snapped. Gilan hesitated, then reached his hand out to hand over the pin. "Ha! I'm not that dumb. Like I'm getting anywhere near your hand. Drop it and kick it through the bars."

Gilan sighed, and did as he was told. The guard picked up the leaf and flipped it over, looking at the metal pin on the back.

"Pendant my ass," he growled, and snapped the metal pin off. He tossed the leaf back at Gilan, and then turned on his heel and left. Gilan sighed and walked back to the far wall of the cell and slid down to the floor, resting his head on the heel of his palm.

"Well, what's the next plan?" Alan asked, looking at Gilan expectantly. For once, Gilan was at a loss. He had nothing to get out, no plan, no idea.

"I haven't got a clue," Gilan finally said, truthfully. The three stared at each other in silence for a long while. It was Little John who finally broke the silence.

"Well... I've got an idea," he said slowly, looking up at the others. Gilan looked at him attentively, and Little John motioned for them to come closer. Little John cast a furtive look beyond the cell door, and then began whispering. "There's always another way out of the dungeons. Not a real way, but a drainage way, because moisture accumulates. It releases into a sewer system and flows out of the castle. It's dry now, and so we can get through them with plenty of space..."

"That's great and all, but how do we get there?" Alan asked.

"When they come to let us out of the cells. On person pretends they're ill, and the guards will come into the cell and tell the others to stand back. That puts us in the perfect position to attack the guards from behind and then lock them in the cell. By the time other guards come to see why the first guards were late, we'll already be in the sewers and have disappeared."

Gilan took a deep, shuddering breath.

"It's not much. It can go wrong pretty easily," Gilan said. "But it's all we've got. Let's do it."


	36. Face to Face

**Hey everyone, I'm back! I know, I'm basically Satan for not logging in for so long, I'm a horrible human. But I had to do college applications, and then robotics, and then my laptop broke, and then more robotics, so… now that robotics and college aps are over, and it's a snow day, I finally have the chance to update. I know, saying "college applications" made me feel weird too… I've been writing fanfictions since middle school, so I've literally been doing this for six years. I feel old, even though I'm just seventeen…. Anywho.**

**Anyone still up for some Robin Hood-style Ranger's Apprentice? :3**

Robin crouched behind a large stone as a couple guards clopped past on tall horses and waited until they had gone around the corner before rising to her feet. The castle walls stretched up before them in the pale grey of the morning, the sun not yet staining the sky with oranges and yellows. Will, Halt and Mauch waited beside her, and then got to their feet with her.

Adrenaline made Robin's blood roar in her ears – she was going to save Gilan and the others, if it was the last thing she did. Their plan was very simple; they were going to climb the walls and shoot them free of their ropes, and then they would make their grand escape back over the walls and into the woods.

Will crept over to the wall, ducking into the dark shadow created by the first few rays of morning light. Robin dashed after him, followed by Mauch and, finally, Halt. Will pulled his small throwing knife from his belt and wedged it into the mud caulk between two stones, then dug his Saxe knife in up higher. He used the knives to scale the old, slightly crumbling walls, testing his weight each time before trusting the ancient rock. He reached the top and disappeared over the edge, leaving Robin and the others to wait in silence. After a couple moments, he peeked back over the edge and motioned for them to join him.

Robin scaled the wall awkwardly, nearly slipping twice, but her determination saw her to the top unscathed. The top of the wall was about two meters across for guards to patrol and had large stone slabs on either side to protect anyone who might be on top of the wall. Every few meters along the outer edge of the wall there was a slit for an archer to shoot from. The internal edge of the wall was only to keep people on the wall from falling, but it served to keep Robin and the other Rangers hidden from view.

Robin wondered why there were no guards patrolling the wall they were waiting on. Even though they had picked the wall that required the least fortification – it faced the stables and, beyond that, the village, so no enemy would normally approach from this site – she would have thought there should be guards on every wall.

It didn't take her long to realize where all the guards were. Down below, in the open square where the guards barracks were, was a large hang-man's platform. A huge wooden crossbeam ran over the top, and from it hung three ropes each with a noose at their end. The dark and forbidding outline of a trapdoor lay under the ropes, and she could see that it would open over ten feet of open air. The ground below the gallows was bare of grass, revealing a handful of bloodstains on the cobble stones – perhaps from people whose necks didn't break when they fell.

Robin shuddered and held back a fierce gagging, trying to hold off the intense fear that washed over her. She knew this kind of fear was cowardly, but she tried to reassure herself: _the bravest people are not the ones without fear, but those who see their fears and face them anyway. _She would face her fears until the end.

Guards ringed the gallows, laughing drunkenly. The gates bellow shuddered as they opened, allowing the townsfolk to enter the square to watch the hangings. The peasants were shepherded in by more guards, but none of them wanted to be there – there was no cheering from them, only discontent grumbling and silence.

They supported Robin Hood.

A rising sense of pride flooded Robin's chest and she squared her shoulders; no matter what they had gotten into, she had done the right thing in their eyes.

The sun poked its rays over the horizon finally and the grey pre-dawn was burned away with hot streaks of yellow and orange light. The people stirred irritably as the bells began to ring, and after a few moments of breathless waiting the Baron walked up the stairs to the gallows, Sir Guy following him. A few other nobles stayed on the ground to watch, seated in comfortable chairs – one of them was Alyss. The Baron turned to face the crowd amassed before him and raised his arms to quiet them.

"Hello, and thank you for coming," he said with a wry smile. Anger bubbled in Robin's stomach; these people hadn't been given a choice. They didn't _want _to be here. "We have gathered to punish three outlaws… Two sidekicks, and one that you all know. Robin Hood."

Whispers whirled through the crowd, and Sir Guy yelled for them to be quiet.

"Robin Hood has tormented this state, robbing people of their rightly earned money." The Baron spat to his left, splattering the deck. "Today… you will see what happens to those kinds of people. Bring out the prisoners!"

Robin tensed and tightened her grip on her bow, reaching over her shoulder to draw an arrow. She knocked it silently and waited, watching the scene below her.

They waited for several minutes, the silence dragging out and slowly giving way to anxious whispers. After another minute, a guard ran up the steps and whispered something in the Baron's ear. The Baron's face flushed an angry red and he barked something back, then called Sir Guy over. Those who were nearest the gallows turned and whispered to those behind them, until everyone knew what had happened. The whispers raged and became loud, spoken comments:

_Robin Hood has escaped._

_The guards were found locked in his cell._

_No one knows where they've gone._

_There's no trace of them._

"Silence!" the Baron yelled, waving his meaty fist through the air. "SILENCE!" The crowd quieted, but they had been given new life by this news. Instead of standing angrily and beaten down, they perked up. "Robin Hood is an outlaw! He is a fiend! We caught him once, and we shall do so again! No one will help him or accept his offers, and anyone who does will be hung right here, in the noose that was meant for this satanic vigilante!"

Robin's grip on her bow tightened. Emotions conflicted inside her; a soaring joy at the news of Gilan's escape, and a seething anger at the Baron's words. She shifted her weight to sit back, contemplating what they should do now – but someone saw her movement and cried out below.

"What's that, up on the wall?!" the voice cried from the crowd. Robin ducked low, but it was too late. They'd been spotted. She lurched to her feet, drawing her arrow to full length and shooting it into the deck between the Baron's feet.

"I am Robin Hood!" she called, and the crowd below cheered wildly. "And he never caught me!" The cheering grew while the Baron stared at her, spluttering with complete fury.

"Robin Hood!" came the cries from below, and fists pumped in the air, cheering him on.

"SEIZE THEM!" Sir Guy yelled, jabbing an angry finger towards her. The guards started pushing through the sea of common-folk to get to the stairs leading up to the wall, but the peasants soon started pushing back. A ring of young men formed a barricade between the guards and the stairs.

"Too long you have lived under this man's thumb!" Robin yelled, anger filling her voice. "You are not his game pieces! You are not his _piggie bank! _You are people, you are each an individual with a life, with a home, with a family! You deserve the respect he would never give you."

"Oh, and you would?!" the Baron screamed. "GUARDS. KNOCK DOWN ANYONE WHO STANDS IN THE WAY."

"I would!" Robin yelled back. "I was just no one, someone who had slipped through the cracks – but I was never _no one. _And neither are they! Anyone who seeks to escape your tyranny has my support!"

The guards started pushing and shoving, and even started beating on the men who blocked their path.

"Any one who protects Robin Hood from this point on will be killed!" the Baron yelled, but the men stood their ground.

"Any one who would fight for your own rights, I cannot offer you sanctuary," Robin yelled, and the men who were protecting them looked at her uncertainly. "But I can offer you a guarantee: you will have the chance to fight for your freedom! This will come to war, and it is up to you what side you will be on."

The men and the guards tangled, and it was evident they would only come to a steel mate. Halt and Will, who had stood up but said nothing, obviously assessed the situation in the same way. They each drew an arrow and shot it, Will's arrow going through the corner of Sir Guy's cloak and nailing it to the deck, and Halt's going through the curling tip of the Baron's shoe. They stood, shocked, and the guards hesitated.

"The battle will not be today," Halt yelled angrily. "We will let you keep your lives if you let us leave. Draw back your weapons, and we won't draw another arrow; if you decline, you will die."

The guards hesitated and drew back slightly. The men (and a couple women) who had struggled and fought against them inched around toward the gate and then backed through it. Robin walked down the stairs silently and followed them to the gate, never turning her back on the Baron or Sir Guy. Halt followed her easily, and Will dragged Mauch to his feet and followed after Halt.

Once outside the great iron doors, the guards glared after them and shut the gates with a sense of angry finality.

War was finally coming.


	37. A New Set of Problems

Robin stood in the middle of their camp, staring at the knife that was still buried in their hidden door. She had no idea what she was going to do. She turned slowly to look at the small crowd of people that had gathered behind her. It was more than just the people who had been in the square with the gallows; others had joined them on their walk away from the castle and into the woods.

The crowd looked back at her expectantly. She counted heads; forty seven men, and another eleven women.

She looked at Halt and Will, hoping they might have a plan, but they looked back at her with neutral expressions; besides, these people were here to follow her, not them.

They were here for Robin Hood.

"What the hell are all these people doing here?!" a voice yelled from the back of the crowd, and Robin immediately perked up. It was a familiar voice, and her heart soared as Gilan pushed his way to the front of the assembled villagers.

"Gilan, you made it out safe!" Robin said, embracing him tightly. He hugged her back, and Alan and Little John pushed through the crowd to join them. "I'm so glad the lot of you are okay. We had a plan to break you out,you know, but I'm glad we didn't need it."

"A ranger doesn't need rescuing!" Gilan declared proudly.

"Oi, our escape plan was _my _idea," Little John said crossly, glowering at Gilan before offering Robin a broad smile. "I'm glad the lot of you are alright too, lass. Where'd all these people come from?"

"They've decided to join us in the fight against the Baron," Robin said. "We have a small army now, all of whom are willing to fight for their freedom!" A small cheer rose up from the crowd.

"Well..." Alan said, then leaned forward to whisper so that the crowd wouldn't hear. "What are we going to do with them? We can't stay here, not now that the Baron's guards know where this is, and we don't have the supplies to keep a band of sixty people going. Especially not now that Winter has taken its grip..." Robin looked around. The ground was hard and frozen with a fine dusting of snow, and thin strips of ice hanging from tree branches. Towards the horizon the mountains were tipped in cruel white ice, reminding Robin that King Duncan was sealed away in the Steppes.

"We'll have to find a new spot," Robin said decisively. "Somewhere to start a new camp with enough room for everyone."

"Just what I was going to suggest," Will said, and Robin flinched; she hadn't heard him join them. "This first couple days will be crucial, and will decide whether or not we get to keep these new recruits. I will be able to advise you, but Robin - you are the figurehead of this mission, you are the one they will look to." Robin stared into his eyes and nodded solemnly.

"Your first decision," Halt said, and Robin flinched again; she hadn't heard him approach either. "Will be how you go about looking for a new place. Will you have everyone march together, or split up to find the best place?"

Robin frowned for a moment. "I think... split up. It's cold, and the sooner we can find a camp and start fires and pitch tents, the better off we'll be. It'll be hard to find somewhere big enough for everyone."

"Aye, that it will be," Little John said musingly. "Perhaps we should break into seven groups, since there are seven of us, and we can each lead a group out? We shouldn't have them in little groups because if they get lost, they might freeze to death. We know these woods better than anyone."

"Sounds like a plan," Robin agreed. "Hello, everyone! Welcome. We are going to establish a new camp, and we must look for an ideal spot! Now, if you, you, you, and... uh, you four over there wouldn't mind coming to stand over here, Halt will lead you guys to the East to look for a good spot to camp." Robin pointed to seven people in the crowd and motioned them over to join Halt. "And if you lot there wouldn't mind coming with Will to the Northeast, and you lot here could come stand with Alan to the North, and you over there with Mauch to the Southeast, you six with Gilan to the South, and you lot with Little John to the Northwest, the rest of you will be coming with me to the Southwest. No one to the West, obviously, because that's where the Baron is..."

People nodded their approval and began dividing as she had described, going over to stand with the people Robin had pointed out to them.

"We'll meet back up here at noon for a mid day meal and to see what everyone has found," Robin said. "Then, in the afternoon we'll go to the best camp site and start establishing a camp. Any questions?"

People looked at one another tentatively, but no one spoke up with a question.

"I have one," Halt said. "Does everyone have everything they need from their homes? Warm clothes, supplies, so on and so forth?"

The crowd shifted uncomfortably, and several people shook their heads. Robin mentally smacked herself in the forehead for not thinking to ask it sooner, and was instantly grateful that Halt and Will were there to think of things she forgot.

"Well, for those of you who don't, how about you go back and get it, and meet us here at noon with the rest of us?" Halt suggested. "Then you can come to the new camp with us. The more you can bring to establish the camp, the better."

There were several mumbled agreements, and about three quarters of the crowd broke off and disappeared into the woods, leaving them with only about fifteen people aside from themselves standing in the clearing.

"Okay, well, I guess now we have about two people for each of us," Robin said, looking at the ragtag group in front of her. "Did you guys get your stuff on our way out of the city?"

They looked at each other, none of them wanting to answer.

"I didn't," a young lad, probably around fourteen said. "I don't have a home."

"You don't have a -" Robin started, breaking off mid sentence.

"I used to," the boy said, shuffling his feet in the thin snow. "But... we couldn't afford the rent anymore."

"You couldn't..." Robin repeated, and then her face flushed with anger. "And this is exactly why we need to put that ridiculous Baron in his place!" They nodded in agreement.

"Okay. Well, off to search for camps, yes?" Will said, clapping his hands together to bring their attention back to the matter at hand. "I believe you said I should be going Northeast?"

"Yeah," Robin said slowly. "One of us to each cardinal direction that isn't towards the town. At least, that's what made sense to me."

"Makes sense enough to me," Mauch agreed. He pointed to two of the remaining people. "You two coming with me to the Southeast to look for a camp. We've only got a couple hours to look before we'll have to double back." They nodded and followed Mauch into the trees, and within moments the others were gone too, leaving Robin standing in the old camp with the last two people. She looked at the two strangers and offered them a broad smile. One of them was the young boy that had spoken before, and the other was a boy some three years his senior.

"What are your names?" she asked, unsure of what to say.

"Xan," the boy said, then pointed to his companion. "This is my brother James."

"Pleasure to meet you," James said, offering his hand and a broad smile. "I've always wanted to meet the famous Robin Hood..."

She clasped his hand and shook it.

"I was just thinking you'd be... well... taller," Xan said, looking down at her. He was probably fifteen centimeters taller than her, even though he was at least a year younger.

"The smaller you are, the quicker you are," she said, brushing off his comment. She turned and pulled the knife from the ground and then flipped open the hidden door, going inside the hidden camp.

"I thought we were going to look for a new camp?" Xan asked, following her inside. "Not that this isn't way cool..."

"We are," she said. "I just wanted to see how much we still have here. You have to understand, it's been just the seven of us for a while now, I wasn't expecting to suddenly have to support sixty-some-odd people."

"Have to support... No, no, we'll pull our own weight," James said, flabbergasted.

"Oh, no, that's not what I meant!" Robin said quickly. "I didn't mean that you wouldn't pull your own weight. I just meant it'll be hard to get the camp started is all. I'm sure once everyone's established it'll be another story entirely. We just have to make sure everyone has a shelter to sleep in tonight, you know?"

"Oh, yeah," Xan agreed. "I suppose that makes enough sense." Robin nodded, digging through the supplies they had.

"Seems like we've got about enough to shelter twenty people," she said with a sigh. "I hope those people bring back plenty of supplies... Especially food. Our food supply wouldn't last more than a week with so many people, even though it was supposed to last all winter."

"If you don't want us here, I'm sure they'd be willing to leave," James suggested uncomfortably.

"No, no! I keep tripping over my own tongue," Robin said, trying to reassure them. "No, I'm so glad everyone's here. It's amazing. I'll just have to figure it out is all... But I will. Figure it out, I mean."

"You seem so young," Xan said with a slight frown. "Are you... my age? I always thought Robin Hood was older."

"Um..." Robin said. "No, I'm definitely older than you."

"You dimwit, she's like that because she's a _girl,_" James said, rolling his eyes at his little brother.

"What?" Xan asked, his eyes wide. He squinted down at her.

"Woah now, that is not public information!" Robin said, shocked that James had seen through her disguise.

"Why not?" James tilted his head to the side with some confusion.

"Well, because..." Robin started, spluttering slightly. "Who would follow a girl?"

"Anyone with any sense would," James answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "You've proven yourself to be more than capable. What would being a girl have to do with that? You're strong, and smart, and you're willing to fight for us. What more could anyone want?"

Robin looked at him with wide eyes. He seemed so sincere, it was stunning; she had never really had anyone react like that. Even Halt and Will had reconsidered everything they knew about her once they knew she was a girl - this guy didn't care that she was a girl. He didn't even bat an eye; he considered the fact that she was _Robin Hood _more important than the fact she was a _girl_. And he thought she was fine just like that.

She wasn't sure how to process what he had said. It made her feel off balance; she had had to fight so hard to have people accept her as a girl, she had disguised herself as a boy to avoid that fight, but now... She wasn't sure what to think.

She turned away from him quickly, her face flushing a bright red, and started walking away. "I guess we should go look for a new camp site, shouldn't we?"


	38. The Clearing

Robin set off to the southwest, Xan and James following behind her quietly. Robin's heart was fluttering in her chest, and it only got worse when she looked up at James. James, for his part, seemed entirely unaware of her condition. Every time she met his gaze she had to look away, which was entirely ridiculous; she was Robin Hood, she had no time for boys, particularly boys she had just met. Besides, she had never really had a thing for _boys _before.

As the sun began to warm the air around them, the frost on the ground turned dewy, which only made Robin more worried. Setting camp on muddy ground would be a nightmare. Luck was on her side this time, though, and the ground stayed frozen - winter had officially set in, which meant the ground would not soften and muddy for another three months at least. By the time the ground softened, hopefully King Duncan would be on his way and they could wrap this entire scenario up and leave. Wouldn't that be spectacular?

"Hey, Robin," Xan said, dragging Robin's attention away from her thoughts. "What's about that over there?" Xan was pointing off to the right, and she followed his finger to a line of shrubs and underbrush. She smiled a bit; shrubs and underbrush grew thickest around the edge of the trees where they got the most light, which hopefully meant there was a clearing beyond those shrubs.

"Let's go investigate, shall we?" Robin asked, pulling out her saxe knife and cutting her way through the brush to the other side. A clearing about the size of an acre opened up in front of her, with a slight sloping hill going up to the opposing tree line. Tall grass waved in the crisp winter breeze, a few glimmering ice crystals still clinging to their tips.

Robin stared at the clearing, stopped dead in her tracks. A horrible feeling rested in the pit of her stomach, and adrenaline made her senses run on overdrive.

"It's perfect!" James declared, looking at the clearing happily. "Just enough room for everyone, but not so much room as to make it obvious."

"I think we've found our camp," Xan agreed, but Robin couldn't reply. She had seen this clearing before, and she had seen that hill; twice before, in fact, in a dream. The dream of Will's death. It was just as she had dreamt it, although far less bloody and without her mentor dying in the middle of it. The sight of it was enough to make her feel like she was paralyzed, and she swallowed hard. Her hands started shaking slightly, and she couldn't fight the feeling of panic rising up inside her. She thought she was going to be sick.

"Robin?" James asked, placing his hand on her arm. She flinched, and he dropped his hand quickly. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," she managed. "No. We aren't camping here." She looked up at the sun, and even though they had enough time to look for another clearing, she just wanted to get as far away from there as she could.

"Why?" Xan asked, looking at her with confusion.

"It's no good," Robin said through gritted teeth, backing up into the treeline. "The hill isn't positioned right, it would make the camp muddy when it rains. There's no nearby river, and it just won't work, okay? Let's go see what the others have found." She spun on her heel and retreated from the clearing, Xan and James following her after a moment's hesitation. She hoped desperately that they hadn't noticed her anxiety attack; she hated the idea that they might think of her as weak. She had to be strong, she was a Ranger, she was Robin Hood - there wasn't time for being afraid.

She squared her shoulders and walked confidently, trying to avoid thinking about the clearing. She focused on the path ahead of her, picking out the trail that Xan and James had left behind and heading back to the camp. She walked slowly so as not to beat the others back to the camp too badly, and indeed by the time they arrived Gilan had already returned. He was lounging in their old campsite with the two people he had left with, a fire already going with a pot of water over it for coffee.

"Any luck?" Robin asked, and Gilan nodded gleefully.

"As a matter of fact, we found the _perfect _place," Gilan said, and the two people with him nodded in agreement. "It's not quite a clearing, it's a place where the trees grew really big and tall though so there's a lot of space between them, and they block the sunlight so there isn't any undergrowth. And, because they are so big across the top, it'll shelter the camp some. It's also at the top of a hill, so all the rain will wash away."

"Sounds perfect," Robin said, the relief evident in her voice. There was a rustling noise and Robin looked up to see some of the people trickling back into the camp ground with supplies from their homes. In groups of two or three they appeared from between the trees, some with only small bags and some with large cases of things. A couple people even brought horses or mules, which could be put with the Rangers' horses.

The group of people sat in the sheltered part of the old camp as they trickled in one by one. There wasn't much space so everyone had to sit close, but it was cold enough that no one minded. The sun was at its peak when the last group, led by Alan, returned. He walked over to her and grumbled with irritation.

"We found absolutely nothing," Alan said, frustration evident in his tone. "There's like... _nothing _out there."

"It's okay," Robin said, and gestured for the others to join her. She asked what they had found, but the findings were unfortunately slim; Will and Halt had each found a clearing they thought might work, but Gilan's location was obviously the best possible solution.

"Well, I guess we're going to Gilan's spot," Robin said. The others nodded their heads in agreement, and Robin asked Gilan to tell the rest of the group.

"Hello everyone!" Gilan called, and everyone looked up at him expectantly. "We've found a site for our new camp!" The crowd cheered, a few even going so far as to pump their fists in the air. "It's to the south of here, we'll leave after a mid-day meal and begin setting up camp. For those of you who have supplies, if you have any spare food that you could share with others for their meal that would be excellent. Anyone who needs food, come over here and we'll see to it that you're fed." Will and Mauch shuffled through their own supplies and brought out all the food they had on hand to give to the camp's newcomers. About twenty people came up for a serving of food, then returned to where they had been sitting. A warm hum of conversation picked up, and Robin relaxed for the first time that day.

They ate quickly and then followed Gilan back to the place he had found, leading horses and bringing all their supplies with them. When they arrived, it was indeed the perfect camp site: not enough of a hill to ruin the camp, but enough to ensure proper runoff; trees to provide shelter and cover; open space to arrange tents with minimal underbrush; thick trees with plenty of dry kindling hiding underneath their outstretched arms... Robin only wished that the clearing from her dream wasn't in between this camp site and the town.

She wasn't afraid of the clearing because she had a bad dream; she was afraid of what it signified. She had never been in that clearing before, so how could it have been in her dream? She knew well enough that magic existed in these lands, and a dream to see the future wasn't all too far-fetched. By seeing that the clearing was a real place, it made her dream all the more real. No, she wasn't afraid of the clearing... She was afraid of her dream.

She didn't want it to be real.

She would do everything she could to keep it from being real.

But somehow, in the pit of her stomach, she knew that an arrow was going to get shot at Will, and there was nothing she could do to keep that arrow from leaving that bowstring.


End file.
